Iraq persistent about discussing the missing during Cairo meeting

Iraq is determined to include the issue of the Iraqi and Kuwaiti missing on the agenda of the forthcoming session of the AL council. It opposed Kuwaiti reservations to submitting this issue to the Arab foreign ministers meeting to be held on Wednesday, March 17 in Cairo.

The Iraqi ambassador to the AL, Sultan al-Shawi, replied to the Kuwaiti reservations and the accusations addressed to Baghdad of deception in solving the question of the prisoners. In a statement to the London-based daily al-Hayat issued today, he said, "We refuse these accusations. We asked the Arab ministers to reconsider this issue for humanitarian considerations and in order to close the door before every one who seeks to exploit this matter to perpetuate the besiege imposed on Iraq."

Al-Shawi expressed his country's readiness to cooperate with Arab and foreign regional organizations and people's organizations to close this issue. However, he said, the issue of the prisoners and the missing is among the difficult issues which threatens the forthcoming meeting of the AL council.

Well-informed sources in Cairo said that Iraq refused recommendations made by certain Arab states and demanded them to give up asking for containing the issue of the dismissed in the meeting so as to provide the forthcoming meeting of the Arab FMs a success.

Arab diplomats expect that few Arab foreign ministers will take part in the coming meeting and they attributed that to the coincidence between the meeting with the meetings of both the African FMs and the Gulf Cooperation Council FMs.

Until Thursday Iraq did not tell about the level of its participation or whether the Foreign Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf will preside over his country's delegation.