“The summit had failed in taking any decisive resolutions,” said Fiqi

Additional Reporting By Hamdi al-Husseni, IOL Staff Writer

CAIRO, March 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Arab summit held on March 1 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh had failed in taking any decisive resolutions and was only satisfied by rejected the looming U.S.-led war on Iraq, Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Egyptian People’s Assembly (parliament) Mostafa al-Fiqi said.

“Arab leaders addressed the already wrathful Arab peoples with a traditional language and hoary clichés that found no ears inside or outside the Arab world, although the summiteers were fully mindful of the fact that Iraq would only serve as a steppingstone for a series of U.S. chaos in the region to augment the vaulting Israeli ambition,” Fiqi told IslamOnline on Monday, March 3.

He further said that the presence of the U.S. troops in Iraq and control over the Gulf was a “very dangerous matter,” not only on Arab security.

It only aims at getting closer to the borders of Iran, feared to be the second victim in the “U.S. series of evil” given that Iran was regarded as the second threat posed to Israel after Iraq.

“If Arabs and Iran accepted the presence of the U.S. troops in the region, it would be like committing a historical blunder, spelling a catastrophe for the entire region and dashing future aspirations of the Arab and Islamic peoples,” he warned.

Fiqi called on Arab countries to make immediate political amendments and democratic reforms before being taken unawares by a regime change using force as it was “foreseen” in Iraq.

He charged that the U.S. lied when saying it only wanted to see democracy spread all over the Arab world.

“Washington is aware that the emergence of democratic regimes in the region would sharply conflict with its vested interests and policies in the Middle East.

“The U.S. is determined to enter Iraq with or without toppling Saddam. On the international legitimacy thing, they (the U.S. administration) are trying to bribe all countries to get a new U.N. Security Council resolution passed to carry out their war plans,” he added.

Fiqi’s statements came following a symposium held in the Egyptian Press Syndicate headquarters in downtown Cairo under the title of “What Comes After Sharm El-Sheikh Summit?”

A number of the Egyptian intelligentsia and prominent politicians took part in the symposium, which paid the Iraq crisis undivided attention.

Fiqi told the participants that he was hopeful the summit would come up with “untraditional initiatives,” decide that the entire region, including Israel, should be disarmed of nuclear weapons and link the Palestinian cause with the Iraq standoff.

Arab Foreign Ministers to Meet Annan

In a related development, an Arab foreign ministerial delegation is to meet U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan Thursday, March 6, to set out the strong opposition to American war plans against Iraq as confirmed by the Arab summit, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday, March 4.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud will fly to New York Wednesday, March 5, to join his Bahraini, Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts and Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, Lebanese officials said.

The delegation will also meet U.N. disarmament chiefs Hans Blix and Mohamed El-Baradei, and has requested talks with the foreign ministers of all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

The mission comes ahead of a key report to the Security Council by Blix and El-Baradei Friday on the progress of U.N. disarmament efforts in Iraq.