Arab Summit deals with comprehensive peace, Iraq - kuwait, regional political and economic challenges

President Mubarak assigned Prime Minister Atef Ebeid to head Egypt's delegation to the Arab summit conference and to read out the President's speech before the inaugural session of the conference today.

The agenda of the summit includes the final draft of Prince Abdullah initiative for achieving peace in the Middle East, the risks facing Palestinians, ways of rallying support for the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli intransigence under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Iraq- Kuwait state of affair, international threats to attack Iraq and risks facing the stability of the region as whole. Al Ahram, tracing the latest developments preceding the convocation of the summit says the situation can be summed up in the following points:

- Egypt will underline support for the Saudi initiative that will turn into an all out Arab one. Prince Abdullah is due to talk about his initiative at the closed sessions.

The initiative is based on issues of Israeli withdrawal and the establishment of full peace between Arabs and Israel.

Arab sources said there was still some disagreement over the item of the Palestinian refugees.

-The summit will call for supporting the budget of the Palestinian National Authority with a sum of $ 330 million in monthly instalments of $ 55 million each for a period of six months, starting next month.

The summit will also call for extending additional support worth 150 million dollars for development efforts in Palestine through AL Aqsa fund.

- The Iraq -Kuwait state of affair has strongly imposed itself on the agenda of the summit.

- The summit will discuss a reconciliatory formula for narrowing gaps between the Iraq and Kuwait papers that were submitted before the foreign ministers meeting.

Kuwait had offered a working paper calling on Iraq to admit the mistake of attacking Kuwait in 1990.

The paper also calls for an Iraqi guarantee to hand over the Kuwaiti POWs and an admission by Iraq of Kuwait's international frontiers and making suitable compensations.

- Arab leaders will reiterate their attitude towards combating international terrorism, as they will make a call for an international conference for addressing terrorism.

-The leaders will review the economic statement drafted by the ministers of the economic and social council that calls on Arab services to integrate into the services trade.

Participants will also call for establishing an Arab customs union.