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Arab League Chief To Push Reconciliation With Iraq
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| Arab League members are struggling to cope with aftermath of 1990-1991 Gulf crisis |
CAIRO, Jan. 22 (News Agencies) - Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa will travel to Kuwait Wednesday, January 23, as he seeks to mediate an end to the enmity between the Gulf emirate and Iraq.
Mussa, who met with Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, in Baghdad last week, will pass on to Kuwait's leadership "ideas" suggested to him during those talks, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
He characterized the Saturday meeting as "very positive," saying he had been asked to transmit Iraq's views to U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and to leaders of the Arab world.
Following the Saturday meeting, Mussa said the messages "deal with current and anticipated developments."
Mussa said his talks with Hussein covered "the international situation and Arab problems, chiefly the situation in Palestine, as well as the Arab summit" scheduled to take place in Beirut in March.
Iraqi Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, said the discussions also touched on "Iraq's relations with Kuwait and the U.N. Security Council."
The 22 Arab League members are still struggling to cope with the aftermath of the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis, which divided the region into pro and anti-Iraqi camps.
Baghdad has been taking an increasingly conciliatory line with Gulf neighbors Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in recent weeks.
An offer to receive a Kuwaiti delegation for talks about Kuwaitis still reported missing from the seven-month Iraqi occupation of the emirate that ended with the Gulf War was notable.
Riyadh and Kuwait have not restored diplomatic relations with Baghdad since the 1991 war, in which a U.S.-led coalition evicted Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Kuwait says some 600 Kuwaitis are missing or held prisoners of war following Iraq's occupation. Iraq denies this and, in return, demands information about 1,142 missing Iraqis.
Ahmad Munther al-Mutlak, the head of a non-governmental group on the missing, said last Sunday that he proposed to Mussa an exchange of visits with Kuwait to discuss the issue.
Kuwait rejected an Arab League committee to resolve the problem, saying it must be settled by an international committee including members of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in line with U.N. resolutions.
Diplomats said better ties between Iraq and its Gulf neighbors could produce a strong Arab stand against any U.S. strike on Iraq and promote dialogue between Iraq and the United Nations on applying Security Council resolutions dating from the Gulf war.
Washington, which has long accused Iraq of seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction, maintains that Saddam Hussein remains a source of regional instability and that he supports "terrorist" movements.
On January 16, U.S. President, George W. Bush, warned Saddam Hussein that he would "deal with him at the appropriate time" unless he readmitted U.N. weapons inspectors, who pulled out of Iraq on the eve of a U.S.- British bombing campaign against the country December 1998.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tareq Aziz, said during an unscheduled visit to Damascus Tuesday, January 22, that the U.S. threats against his country were "blackmail."
His impromptu trip to Syria comes a day after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, discussed the Iraqi issue with Syrian officials.
In brief comments to the press, Aziz accused the United States of "blackmailing" Baghdad and vowed that Iraq "was ready to face any situation."
Iraq, Washington's sworn enemy since the 1991 Gulf War, is widely seen as a potential target of a future phase of the U.S.-led "war on terror" launched in Afghanistan in October in retaliation for the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Aziz's visit coincides with that of Kuwaiti Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah.
However, Aziz, who is due to hold talks with Syrian Foreign Minister, Faruq al-Shara, stressed that the two visits were not linked.
Iraq offered to receive a Kuwaiti delegation for talks about Kuwaitis still reported missing from the seven-month Iraqi occupation of the emirate that ended with the Gulf War.
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