Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa

CAIRO, July 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Aiming to strengthen the Arab League, widely seen as ineffective after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Egypt unveiled a package of reforms Monday, July 28, hoping to save the 58-year-old organization.

Government daily Al-Ahram published the complete text of the Egyptian government's initiative, which seeks mainly to reform voting procedures, as well as set up a "security council" and an Arab court of justice.

In its initiative, Cairo said that although the League charter required a unanimous vote, deemed "essential" when the organization was founded in 1945, today it was "an obstacle to taking vital decisions ... resulting in paralysis".

Instead, Egypt wants to see the 22-member Cairo-based organization adopt majority voting.

Cairo also wants an "Arab security council" or "decision-making forum" to be set up to deal with security and defense issues across the Arab world.

In addition, Egypt is calling for the establishment of an Arab court of justice, tasked with ruling on regional conflicts, and an "Arab parliament" for political and financial oversight of the League.

The Egyptian government wants a body tasked with resolving conflicts, to be set up immediately, as was agreed at a 1996 Arab summit and sanctioned by foreign ministers in 2000.

The document, however, does not specify what form such a body would take.

Cairo also calls for greater inter-Arab economic cooperation and the appointment of a "secretary general" to supervise reforms.

The reform plan is to be presented at the next summit of heads of state in March 2004 in Tunis, Al-Ahram reported.

The League was brought to its knees by the occupation of Iraq, when its member states proved incapable of taking concrete steps to stave off the U.S. and British military action which they opposed.

Divisions widened when member states pushed through resolutions expressing opposition to war and pledging no support for the Western invaders, angering Gulf Arab states which hosted the coalition troops.

Maher To Libya

Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher visited Libya and held talks with the country's leader Moamer Kadhafi, who has threatened to pull Tripoli out of the League for its failure to act on key Arab issues, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Libya's official news agency JANA said Maher, at the meeting in the northern town of Sirte, delivered a message from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the situation in the Arab world and ties between Cairo and Tripoli.

It gave no further details.