AL studies Euro -American reforms initiative

Chairman of the office of the Arab League secretary general Hesham Youssef announced that the next Arab summit will study the American and European initiatives debated for reforms and the change in the Middle East and the reservations of the Arab states concerning them.

Youssef added that these initiatives will be assessed by the Arab leaders, stressing that any initiative that ignores the Israeli weapons of mass destruction will not be accepted.

The US intends to debate a project for democratic, political and economic reform in the Middle East during the G-8 summit in June in Georgia, USA.

According to the American and Arab press, Washington will launch this plan- which will cover a geographic area extends from Mauritania to the west to Afghanistan to the east-- the Greater Middle East initiative.

Also according to the paper, the initiative which is under formulation will ask the Arab governments and the governments of southern Asia implementing vast economic and political reforms, and questions them in their human rights record.

The German foreign minister Joschka Fischer called on February 7th for " a new Atlantic initiative for security and development in the Middle East." Worthy mentioning that the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria in addition to the secretary general of the Arab League Amr Moussa had made contacts with him to provide a success for the next Arab summit to be held in Tunisia. It was agreed to formulate a new paper on the Arab- Israeli conflict, stemmed from the basics of the Arab peace initiative which was approved at the Beirut's summit in 2002.

The ministers also discussed the development of the AL and the situation in Iraq with the objective of coordinating Arab positions over dealing with the present and future status of Iraq.