Beirut Arab Summit Opens With Absence of Heavyweights

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 28, 2002

Beirut Arab Summit Opens With Absence of Heavyweights

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14TH Arab Summit Held In Lebanon

The long-awaited 14th Arab League (AL) Summit was finally kicked off at the five-star hotel PhoeniciaInter-Continental in Beirut on Wednesday, but with the absence of heavyweights in the Mideast region.

Among the heads of state failing to show up at the summit are Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,Jordanian King Abdullah Bin Hussein and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Analysts believe their absence will cast a shadow on the summit expected to make decisions on key issues concerning the realizationof a just, durable and comprehensive peace based on relevant U.N. resolutions.

However, attending Arab leaders have expressed, in their speeches delivered at the opening ceremony, the firm and unified Arab stand on the key issues in the Mideast region and on the worldarena.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, the host and newly-inaugurated rotating chairman of the pan-Arab bloc, said in his opening speech that occupation of other countries' territories is the most seriousform of terrorism, the state terrorism.

Lahoud said that Israel has been escalating its aggression and continuing its slaughtering of Palestinian civilians since the convention of Madriad conference in 1991 and the 1993 Oslo Accord, which inaugurated the Mideast peace process.

He also urged the Jewish state to withdraw from all Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Mideast War in accordance with the relevant U.N. resolutions on the Mideast issues, saying Israel's aggression against the Palestinians is against the whole Arab world.

In his keynote speech, AL chief Amr Moussa said that peace is all Arab nations' strategic option in the process of realizing a just, durable and comprehensive peace in the Mideast region.

Moussa stressed that the whole Arab world stands firm against military strikes on any Arab nation, apparently referring to the repeated U.S. threat of launching military operation on Iraq if thelatter continues to reject the return of U.N. arms inspectors to check the weapons of mass destruction in the country.

On terrorism, the AL chief said that Arab world has made their firm and unified stand clear that Arabs oppose any forms of terrorism.

In his speech, Moussa also touched on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti relations, inter-Arab economic cooperation and regional economic integration, as well as the establishment of Arab free trade zone.

Meanwhile, Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb, who attendedthe summit on behalf of King Abdullah Bin Hussein, AL's outgoing chairman, said that Arab nations support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Ragheb urged Israel to implement all relevant U.N. resolutions on the Mideast issues.

Israel's occupation is the cause of Palestinian uprising, said Ragheb, noting the Mideast peace precess can not be isolated, but should be revived on comprehensive basis.

Ragheb also urged world major powers to strengthen the mediationto help solve the Mideast crisis to realize a just, durable and comprehensive peace based on all relevant U.N. resolutions.

He appealed to Arab nations to solve their disputes through the means of dialog.

On terrorism, the prime minister stressed that all Arab nations rejected any forms of terrorism, whether it is state or organized terrorism.

Observers believe the influential leaders absent themselves fromthe event for various reasons, but mostly because of the disagreement over the wording of the draft final communique, which calls for continuing Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation instead of encouraging peace talks.

Dignitaries attending the opening session include Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul-Aziz, President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria,President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, King Mohammed VI of Morocco and President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunis.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, AL chief Amr Moussa, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, representatives of the African Union and other international organizations also attended the opening of the summit.

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