Egypt-Qatar Conflict results in low-level delegation to Islamic conference

Arab diplomatic sources told ArabicNews.com that the assistant Egyptian foreign minister, Sayed Kasem El-Masri, will head his country's delegation to a meeting of Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC] countries' foreign ministers to be held in Doha on Sunday.

The delegation will include six officials from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the Egyptian ambassador in Qatar, Mohamed Menis.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa will inaugurate the meeting in which the keynote speech will tackle Islamic issues and the necessity of united positions in the current international and regional circumstances.

Meanwhile, the low-level Egyptian delegation to the conference suggests that disputes remain between Qatar and Egypt despite Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's invitation to the Qatari Emir, who is expected to visit Egypt at the end of the current month after the ministers' council concludes on March 19.

The sources said that the disputes between the Egyptian and Qatari foreign ministers, Amr Moussa and Hamad Bin Jasim al-Thani, will lead President Mubarak to interfere and send a high-ranking delegation to Qatar to joining the meetings.

The meetings have an added importance because the Arab ministerial sevenfold committee, from Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, will meet on the sidelines of the meeting to discuss the recent developments in the Lockerbie dispute.