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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Acting to close ranks
By Nevine Khalil
AS PART of continuing inter-Arab coordination and consultations on regional issues, President Hosni Mubarak visited Kuwait for four hours on Saturday to discuss developments in the Middle East and Gulf with the Kuwaiti leadership, writes Nevine Khalil. Mubarak met with Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah to review the Iraq crisis, Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts, international economic trends as well as bilateral relations.
The brief visit came after Mubarak's meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah last week in which both sides pledged greater efforts to close Arab ranks, and also followed a conference of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on 17-18 March.
Baghdad asked the conference of foreign ministers to issue a clear condemnation of the US-British airstrikes in the no-fly zones in the north and south of Iraq. However, the conference merely demanded "a halt to all acts outside the framework of UN Security Council resolutions, to which Iraq is subjected."
Iraq also demanded that the issue of Iraqis, Saudis and Kuwaitis allegedly missing in action during the 1990-91 Gulf War be included on the conference's agenda. The request was met by strong opposition from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. As a compromise, the conference asked the Arab League's secretary-general to "set up a mechanism, within the framework of UN Security Council resolutions and the 1949 Geneva Convention, for solving all humanitarian problems between Iraq (on the one hand) and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (on the other)."
"We hope that the Arab leaderships will close ranks in order to repair the damage done to Arab national security," said Mubarak's political adviser Osama El-Baz after the talks in Kuwait, clearly referring to the inter-Arab rift which resulted from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. "We want action, not just words," he stressed.
Mubarak and Sheikh Jaber also pledged support for any decision taken by the Palestinian leadership regarding the declaration of a state. Alluding to Israel and possibly Turkey and Iran, El-Baz said that Egypt sought "calm and peaceful" relations with non-Arab countries in the region.
Tension between Syria and Turkey has been defused following mediation by Mubarak, but the peace talks between Syria and Israel have stalled since Binyamin Netanyahu's coming to power. A quarrel between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran has dragged on for years following the latter's occupation of three Gulf islands, claimed by the former.
On bilateral relations, Mubarak and Shiekh Jaber reviewed the work of the Supreme Egyptian-Kuwaiti Committee, which will be meeting again soon. They also discussed the possibility of greater investment in Egypt by the Kuwaiti Development Fund, which is already financing a major part of the water projects at Toshka in south-western Egypt, and the Egyptian-Kuwaiti Holding Company, which has a capital of $500 million. They also agreed that extensive inter-Arab coordination on economic issues was needed in the light of the emergence of various economic groupings worldwide.
