Free Republic

Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs, Mohammad Momani, said Saturday that a U.S. presidential envoy will attend the 28th Arab Summit to be held in Jordan starting on Wednesday. Momani said in a press conference that a French envoy will attend the summit as well. He added that contacts are currently being held through the Jordanian embassy in Washington to arrange the meetings that the American envoy will hold during the summit. Momani noted that the Arab world is interested in holding the Arab Summit in order to convey a message to the world that Muslims are a nation...

PA President Mahmoud Abbas' speech, delivered at the Arab League Summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on June 25, called for the Arab League's help in preparing a lawsuit against the British government for issuing and implementing the 1917 Balfour Declaration. The speech was read at the summit by PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki, following the death of Abbas' brother. The speech aired on Al-Jazeera network.

The Arab League summit that began Thursday in Baghdad has illuminated the political and religious divisions splitting with Arab world, while powerful eastern non-Arab neighbor Iran looks on and tries to pull Iraq's strings. One of those fractures is between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, branded a would-be dictator by domestic rivals, who is sitting down with the new leaders of countries that have overthrown tyrants in the often-bloody Arab Spring revolutions. The meeting of Arab leaders in the cavernous Republican Palace built by Saddam Hussein is the first such gathering since those political convulsions began in Tunisia in January...

Arab leaders were mostly tending to yesterday's news (Israel) during their week end summit in Sirte, Libya -- but today's main issue (Iran) kept creeping in. Sure, on the surface the summit was all about Israel: The hardliners, including the Libyan host, attempted to dissuade the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, from entering into negotiations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him to return to "armed struggle" instead. Western-backed "moderates" called for America to pressure Israel for further concessions, to make it easier for Abbas to restart talks with Jerusalem. But while Libya's "eternal colonel," Moammar Khadafy, poses as "king...

This week Qatar hosted the annual Arab Summit in its capital Doha. It was dubbed the reconciliation summit after months of serious rifts in the Arab World. The tiny country had put the noses of some of the big players out of joint by trying to adopt the role of regional mediator, traditionally played by heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Our Middle East correspondent Katya Adler reported on the summit and set out to find out more about Qatar, one of the region's richest nations.

As usual, Libyan leader raised eyebrows Monday with his incendiary but hilarious remarks at the Arab summit in Doha. As the Emir of host Qatar welcomed Saudi King Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz al Saud, Libyan President Moammar Kadafi interrupted him addressing the Saudi king, saying: "I seize the opportunity to tell my brother Abdullah, you have been evasive and scared of confrontation for six years. I want to assure you today not to be scared. I am telling you after six years it was proved that lies stand behind you and your grave awaits you. You were created by Britain and...

When Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir arrived in Cairo yesterday noon for talks with President Hosni Mubarak it was his second overseas trip since the arrest warrant indicting him for war crimes and crimes against humanity was issued on 4 March by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The message Al-Bashir is sending by making consecutive trips to Asmara and Cairo is, his aides say, one of "defiance" against the ICC warrant. Official Sudanese statements suggest Al-Bashir's defiance may well extend to the annual Arab summit in Doha on 30 March despite orchestrated appeals by the masses and an unprecedented religious edict...

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders at a summit Saturday, and warned that they might be overthrown like former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Gadhafi's rambling, off-the-cuff speech to the opening of the Arab summit both bewildered and brought reluctant smiles to the faces of the other leaders. The maverick Libyan's litany of insults at Arabs and his undiplomatic railing at the disarray of Arab regimes have become almost a tradition at the annual gathering. Dressed in lush purple and pink robes with a traditional Libyan cloak and cap, Gadhafi blasted Arab countries for doing nothing while...

Egypt to snub Syria's Arab summit Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are shunning Syria's Arab summit Egypt has said President Hosni Mubarak will not attend a summit of Arab leaders in Damascus on Saturday. A junior cabinet minister will lead the Egyptian delegation instead. Saudi Arabia had said it would only send its Arab League representative rather than King Abdullah, and Lebanon is boycotting the summit completely. The political situation in Lebanon, which has prompted disputes between Arab countries, is being blamed for the upheaval, correspondents say. Lebanon has been without a president since November because of disputes between...

Arab leaders are considering holding an emergency summit on Lebanon in Saudi Arabia later this week, two Lebanese media outlets reported Monday. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was expected to make the call during an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut Monday, reported the LBC-Hayat newscast on Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. television, quoting Saudi sources. Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper also said contacts were under way among Arab states to hold the summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, later this week. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa was quoted as saying to As-Safir that there is agreement in principle among Arab countries...

While the rest of the world intently works towards peace and stability in the Middle East, the very governments of the region do not seem to contribute with quite the same enthusiasm. The Arab Summit in Algeria concluded with a rehashed 2002 demand, initially drafted by Saudi Arabia, in which Arab nations extend naturalized relations to Israel at the completion of an Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders. Though discussions initially indicated that European and American pressure to reverse the order of relations and withdrawal would yield results, Arab leaders instead concluded that they had not properly educated world leaders on...

[World News]: MOSCOW, March 21 : Russia has accepted an invitation to attend the Arab summit meeting in Algiers Tuesday, Interfax news agency reported. Algeria, which will host the summit, invited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov to attend, the news agency said. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday Russia welcomed the opportunity to take part in the inter-Arab summit. "Russia welcomes the Algerian forum and sincerely wishes success to its delegates who will discuss current problems in the Middle East and North Africa, including the peace settlement between Arab countries and Israel, the situation in Iraq,...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon's pro-Syria president said Saturday that he will not attend an Arab summit due to political turmoil in his country as investigators searched for clues to a car bomb that rocked a largely Christian neighborhood in Beirut, injuring nine people. President Emile Lahoud did not elaborate on his decision not to participate in Monday's summit in Algeria, but it came as Syria withdraws troops from Lebanon after facing heavy pressure from the United States and fellow Arab countries to end a three decade presence. The attack devastated an eight-story apartment building in the largely Christian New Jdeideh...

World leaders at the Group of Eight summit have adopted a plan to promote reform in the Middle East and North Africa amid sceptism. But some expressed apprehension on Wednesday about US President George Bush's hopes to democratise the region. The initiative, a watered-down version of an earlier highly controversial proposal, reflects deep-seated concerns of many Arabs, Muslims and Europeans by stressing the importance of Palestinian-Israeli peace as a catalyst for reform. But it also maintains that the lack of a settlement cannot be an excuse for inaction and that reforms should not be stalled by the unstable situation in...

KUWAIT, May 24 (UPI) -- If Arab leaders gathered in a summit meeting in Tunis this past weekend were to qualify for a report card, most would score low marks for lack of progress, absence of political freedom, deficit of democracy and human rights abuses. While the developed world has progressed over the last decade, the Arab world has largely stagnated, lamented Turki al-Hammad, a Jordanian-born political scientist. "The whole world has changed but the Middle East has not," said al-Hammad, adding the reason the area remained in conflict was "because the Middle East is going backward instead of forward."...

UNIS, May 23 - Arab leaders adopted a modest if unprecedented joint commitment toward political change at the end of their annual summit meeting on Sunday. Squabbling over the issue, which had delayed the meeting for two months, continued until the last minute. Participants and analysts alike wondered aloud if the document would have any significance, because putting it into effect was left largely up to the individual countries, and past summit meetings were littered with weighty resolutions that went nowhere. "We are talking about problems that require real change in society - its position toward women, its position toward...

TUNIS Arab leaders adopted a modest if unprecedented joint commitment toward political reform at the end of their annual summit meeting on Sunday. Squabbling over the issue, which had delayed the meeting for two months, continued until the very last minute. Participants and analysts wondered aloud if the document would have any significance, since putting it into effect was left largely up to the individual countries, and past summit meetings were littered with weighty resolutions that went nowhere. ‘‘We are talking about problems that require real change in society — its position toward women, its position toward democracy, the role...

left, chief of Egyptian intelligence Omar Suleiman, second left, and his foreign minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam at the opening of 16th ordinary session of the Arab Summit in Tunis Saturday May 22, 2004. Tunis hosts a two-day of Arab Summit to discuss the situation in Iraq, the recent escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories and reforming of the Arab League as well as a response to a U.S. proposal for political reform in the Middle East.

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) -- Arab leaders convened their annual summit Saturday to discuss condemning terrorism, reiterating calls for Arab-Israeli peace and putting Arab nations on the road to political and economic reforms advocated by the United States. But the opening session was overshadowed by the walkout of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who criticized peace efforts and threatened to pull his country out of the 22-member Arab League. "What's the significance of this Arab gathering?" Gadhafi said before packing up and leaving Tunis. "How can this summit convene while there are two Arab presidents in jail? I am disgusted." Gadhafi was...

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - Arab leaders meeting at an annual summit Saturday were united in outrage over the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, according to draft resolutions that also condemned terrorism and reiterated calls for Arab-Israeli peace. But their initial efforts were overshadowed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's walkout and subsequent threat to withdraw from the 22-member Arab League. He later criticized peace initiatives backed by Arab leaders, saying any solution to the Palestinian refugee problem must include giving refugees back the land they lost to Israel in 1948 and 1967 wars. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, a major player...