Mubarak: summit to consider delegation to Iraq; Syria: joint Arab defense needed
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak yesterday announced that the Arab summit will decide whether it will send a delegation to convince the Iraqi President to quit the authority, while Syria has called for "abstaining from giving any military aid against any Arab country" to be within decisions of the summit.
Following his talks with the French President Jacque Chirac which lasted for one hours at Elysee palace in Paris, Mubarak said " we have discussed international issues, foremost being the Iraqi issue and the Middle East question. We have exchanged view points regarding them." On whether a delegation will be sent to the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to convince him to quit, Mubarak said "this matter is premature and the Arab summit will decide on that." The early Arab summit will be held in Cairo on March 1st.
Yesterday, Mubarak met with the Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal who handed him a message from King Fahd and from the Saudi crown prince on the developments of the Iraqi issue.
On the other hand, an official source at the Syrian foreign ministry told the Lebanese daily Assafir in its today's issue that Damascus has no reservation on the date of the summit which will be held by the beginning of March. The source stressed that what is important for Syria is the decision to take "regarding what will be discussed in the summit and what should be the result," adding that "consultations are continuous concerning the agenda of the summit and the expected results." Syria, however, seeks to revive the issue of the "Arab charter for joint defense" and that the item of "abstaining from providing any military aid against any Arab country" which was adopted in the emergency meeting of the Arab foreign ministers to be within the resolutions of the summit.
As for the level of the Syrian representation at the Non-aligned summit, the source expected that the Syrian vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam will preside over the Syrian delegation and the delegation to include also the deputy foreign minister Walid al-Mu'allim.