Inter-Arab differences may obstruct ministerial meeting

News reports have quoted a high ranking Arab official as saying that differences among the Arab states may obstruct the emergency meeting for the Arab foreign ministers due to be held on Thursday in Cairo.

The Arab official who refused to be identified expected that these differences on the position that should be adopted towards the speech made by the chairman of the Palestinian authority Yasser Arafat, which " bombarded this meeting."

He added that at a time when the camp of moderate Arabs desire to back Arafat's speech, countries like Syria and Iraq desire to denounce the surrender of the Palestinian president, who in his recent call called for immediate and complete halting of all armed acts against Israel, especially terrorist operations and resuming peace negotiations with Israel, immediately.