King to head delegation to 25th Arab Summit in Kuwait

KUWAIT — His Majesty King Abdullah will head Jordan’s delegation to the 25th Arab Summit that will start in Kuwait Tuesday amidst deep inter-Arab disputes and the absence of several Arab leaders.

The King was expected to leave for the pan-Arab meeting from The Hague, where he was attending a nuclear conference, while Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour and Royal Court Chief Fayez Tarawneh left for Kuwait on Monday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Kuwait’s summit is expected to be dominated by the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict with two-thirds of the summit’s resolutions focusing on the issue, according to a draft communiqué. 

Arab leaders are likely to endorse a resolution to technically and financially support Jordan to deal with the impact of some 1.3 million Syrians living in the country, including some 600,000 registered refugees, a Jordanian official said here.

They are also expected to voice support for an agreement signed between Jordan and Palestine last year that reaffirms the status of King Abdullah as the custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem, according to the draft resolutions.

The Syrian conflict, which entered its fourth year and has so far claimed the lives of some 150,000 Syrians, will be a key issue on Tuesday’s agenda.

However, rifts among Arab states continue to be evident about how to tackle the crisis in Syria, whose seat will remain vacant at the summit, held in Kuwait for the first time after it became an Arab League member in 1961.

“There is no military solution to the crisis in Syria. The solution only comes through negotiations and a political settlement, which represents the optimal and sole way to end the bloody conflict in Syria,” Kuwait’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Sabah said in a speech Sunday at the opening of the meeting of the Arab foreign ministers here.

Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Al Attiya called for firmer measures against Syria.

“We have to provide all forms of material and political support, maintain firm solidarity with the Syrian people, strengthen the capacity of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, and work actively to stop the killings and displacement of the innocent Syrian people,” Attiya said at the meeting.

He also called for using all means to urge the Security Council to issue a binding resolution to impose a ceasefire in Syria and resort to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows it to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take military and non-military action to “restore international peace and security”.

The issue of suspending Syria’s seat at the 22-member Arab League and giving it to the Syrian National Coalition was also one of the issues that triggered disputes among some Arab states, according to a copy of the draft resolutions of the summit.

Iraq and Algeria reiterated their reservations on giving Syria’s seat to the Syria National Coalition, while Lebanon remained neutral on the controversy. The rest of the Arab states renewed their support for giving the seat to the coalition, but said some measures are yet to be completed before the body officially assumes the new status.

The ministers avoided tackling the rifts between Qatar and the three other Gulf states as well as Egypt during the ministerial meeting. However, diplomatic sources said the issue is expected to be discussed bilaterally during the summit.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recalled their ambassadors from Qatar recently in protest of Doha’s perceived support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which was recently branded a terrorist organisation by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Customary condemnation of the external threats faced by the Arab people, including the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the violations against Al Aqsa Mosque and Palestinians, and the occupation of the Golan Heights, will also be reiterated during the summit, according to the draft final statement.