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Gulf Papers Deplore Row Over Arab Summit Venue, Mussa To Help Solve Row
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| Mussa vows
to hold Arab summit
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DUBAI, Jan. 8 (News Agencies) - Gulf newspapers deplored Tuesday, January 8, the row over the venue of the Arab summit slated for March in Beirut, as Arab League Secretary General, Amr Mussa, announced he will tour the Middle east this week to prepare for the summit.
"The Arabs are more than ever in need of what unites, rather than divides, them,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Saudi Arabia's daily newspaper, Al-Watan, as saying. “Personal issues are unimportant compared to pan-Arab causes."
"The current polemic must stop ... especially since Beirut has been chosen as the venue of the next Arab summit to honor Lebanon, its people and its resistance which liberated a large part of South Lebanon" from Israeli occupation in May 2000, the paper said.
This choice "is not linked to any particular person," Al-Watan said, apparently referring to Lebanese parliament speaker and leader of Amal Movement, Nabih Berri, who has objected to the eventual presence in Beirut of Libyan President, Moamer Kadhafi.
Most Lebanese Muslim leaders, notably Berri, accuse the Kadhafi regime of being behind the disappearance of their spiritual guide, Amal founder, Imam Mussa Sadr, during a trip to Libya in 1978.
"On what basis does Mr. Berri give himself the right to put a veto on the presence of an Arab leader or delegation at the Arab summit in Beirut?" asked Qatar's daily newspaper, Al-Ra’y.
"Can a weakened Arab world take another crisis which would deepen its divisions?" the paper said, stressing that the summit must be held in order to help the Palestinians in their confrontation with Israeli occupation.
Libya, which has blamed Berri for Mussa Sadr's disappearance, has demanded that the summit be shifted to Cairo, but Arab League Secretary General, Amr Mussa, will try to resolve the row over the venue during a Middle East tour this week.
Mussa said Monday, 7 January, he will tour the Middle East this week to prepare for the Arab summit with diplomats, AFP reported. He added that he will try to overcome Libyan objections to its being held in Beirut.
The League's Secretary General said he will meet in Khartoum Wednesday, 9 January, with Libyan Minister for African Unity, Ali Abdel Salam Triki, while attending talks in Sudan on the eve of an east African summit.
Arab diplomats said Mussa will try to convince Triki of the importance of holding the summit of the leaders of the 22-member Arab League in Beirut.
Mussa said Sunday that the summit will be held in the Lebanese capital, despite a request by Libya for it to be moved to Cairo amid tensions with Lebanese Amal Movement members.
Mussa is expected to travel first to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, before heading the same day to Sudan, Arab League sources said. He will also travel to Syria and Lebanon as part of preparations for the summit.
An Arab League source, meanwhile, said that foreign ministers of the league will meet twice in March, at the pan-Arab organization’s Cairo headquarters and in Beirut.
The first meeting, scheduled for March 9 and 10, is one of a series in which member states may bring up issues of concern to them for pan-Arab discussion, AFP quoted the source as saying.
The second, scheduled for March 24, is a preparatory meeting for the summit.
Also Monday, the Baghdad government, after a weekly session chaired by Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, said in a statement that it was the "hope of Iraq that the annual Arab summit takes place as scheduled in March in Lebanon."
"The regular holding of Arab summits is more important than the pretexts invoked by this or that party in secondary affairs," it said.
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