Libya boycotts an Arab ministerial meeting

Libya boycotted yesterday works of the 72nd session of the social and economic council which was at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo. This was in another step towards implementing a new threat to withdraw from the AL.

It was due that Libya would preside over deliberations of this meeting which was attended by Arab ministers of finance and the economy and the secretary general of the Arab League Amr Moussa. In line with the Libyan boycott, the Lebanese minister of the economy Marwan Hmade presided over the meeting which will last for two days, while the council of the Arab foreign ministers assigned the Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher as his country presided over the new session of the council on September 9th in the effort to convince Libya to give up boycotting the AL meetings and withdrawing the threat to withdraw from it.

Libya had also boycotted meetings of the Arab foreign ministers on September 9 and 10 during which it was approved to accept the representation of the Iraqi governing council which was appointed by the US. In recent years, Libya had threatened withdrawal from the AL and changed its mind several times.

There are 21 items on the agenda of the works of the Social and Economic Council including the promotion of the work system of the council itself and establishing a greater free Arab trade area and a customs federation and a mechanism to settle differences and the formation of the Arab investment court and supporting the Palestinian economy.

The session also discussed liberalization of services and trade, and the agreement on founding an Arab trade organization for telecommunications technology and unifying Arab states stances during the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.