5 - 11 April 2001
Issue No.528
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 April 2001 Issue No.528 |
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In Amman last week, the Arabs set out to achieve reconcilliation, support the Palestinian Intifada and bolster the Arab League. Dina Ezzat, who was in the Jordanian capital for the summit, appraises the results
The unfinished task
A strong political will is needed if post-summit consultations on the Iraq issue are to lead to reconciliation
The work of the political committee that King Abdullah of Jordan was authorised to lead by the recent Arab summit to deal with the Iraqi problem has yet to be launched. And when, and as some Arab diplomats say if, it is launched it will have to be backed by a strong Arab political will so that they can bear fruit.
Leaders put a bold face on the region's seemingly intractable problems
(photo: AP)
Also deemed necessary for the success of any efforts on the Iraq-Kuwait reconciliation is a US understanding for the need to end the decade-long suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
In fact, it is accepted in the Arab political backstage that without US approval, any efforts to close the file of the Iraq-Kuwait dispute will not lead to any true reconciliation.
"The Iraq-Kuwait affair is not strictly an Arab issue; it is an international issue. This is something that we Kuwaitis cannot ignore -- not even if our Arab brethren who failed to get Saddam out of Kuwait in 1990 told us otherwise," commented one Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry source.
So far King Abdullah of Jordan has neither started his consultations on the matter as authorised by the summit nor named the countries that he will take on board in the projected reconciliation committee. "It is unlikely that this will happen before he comes back from Washington later this month," commented one Arab diplomat.
The current state of relations between Iraq and Kuwait and the possibilities of a reconciliation between the two neighbouring countries have consumed most, if not all, of the efforts of the Arab summit held last week in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo for their regular twice-yearly session in mid-March and later in the month to prepare for the Arab summit failed to get Said Al-Sahhaf, Iraq's foreign minister and Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed, Kuwait's minister of foreign affairs, to agree to a compromise that could accommodate the Iraqi request for an unconditional rehabilitation and the Kuwaiti demand for security guarantees. The summit did not succeed where the foreign ministers failed and no resolution was agreed upon with regard to the Iraq-Kuwait affair. The personal intervention of several heads of state, including those who sided with or against Saddam during his invasion of Kuwait, failed to get the Kuwaitis and Iraqis to agree to the compromise language.
Both the Kuwaiti and Iraqi delegations seemed convinced that it was the other side's intransigence that aborted chances of agreeing on a resolution to be adopted by the summit. Kuwait says it agreed to all Baghdad's requests with regard to the lifting of sanctions but that it "legitimately insisted on sufficient guarantees that Iraq will respect Kuwait's independence and has no plans to re-invade Kuwait." Iraq says that the Kuwaiti delegation had no alternative but to go along with increasingly pressing Arab demands to lift sanctions on Iraq but was meanwhile making "illegitimate pre-conditions" regarding the language in which the "security guarantees" were to be spelled out.
"They insisted that the proposed resolutions should read as follows: Iraq will respect the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Kuwait. This suggested that this is not currently the case. We couldn't have condoned this," Al-Sahhaf told a press conference after the summit ended.
"This is totally untrue," argued a senior Kuwaiti diplomat. "On the eve of the summit 16 Arab states that included both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia agreed on a language that included a call for the UN Security Council to move towards lifting sanctions off Iraq and a call for Baghdad to publicly abandon any territorial claims on Kuwaiti land but the Iraqi delegation refused to accept it," he said.
However, during the closing session of the summit last Wednesday, Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid interrupted his reading of the final declaration of the summit to read a note he was handed. The note stated agreement to delegate King Abdullah, the chair of the Arab summit for the next year, to pursue further consultations, in coordination with the Arab League secretary-general and other Arab leaders, in an effort to reach a settlement of the Iraq-Kuwait dispute.
This move -- although in and by itself was not seen as sufficient to induce change in the Arab, or for that matter international approach towards Iraq -- was viewed as the first step on the one-thousand-mile road.
While reading the Amman declaration Abdel-Meguid was passed an insertion on the Iraq issue that came as a result of last-minute consultations. The extra lines that were included in the declaration made a general reference to the need for Arab countries to avoid "the use of force or the threat thereof" to settle disputes. It, however, included clear language on the sanctions issue: "We Arab leaders declare... a call to lift sanctions off Iraq." In their Amman Declaration, Arab leaders also made a general call for all Arab countries "to rise above their differences and move towards realising Arab reconciliation" to best serve Arab national security interests.
But since the summit ended not much has happened to suggest that a further step will be taken. Actually, Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed was quoted in the national Kuwaiti press as telling close aides that Kuwait's conciliatory political line as expressed at the summit is no longer valid since Iraq did not move to meet it halfway.
"This statement could have been made in response to the harsh criticism to which the Kuwaiti delegation was subjected from Kuwaitis who are opposed to any reconciliation with Iraq. But if it was a reflection of a genuine change of heart then the little that was achieved in Amman is going to be undermined," said an Arab diplomatic source.
The future of Arab moves on Iraq seems to have been put on hold pending a clear US stance, particularly in relation to Washington's plans to replace the current sanctions imposed on Iraq with so-called "smart sanctions," and also in anticipation of clearer policy indicators from both Kuwait and Baghdad.
A possible future catalyst in this respect, observers and diplomats agree, is the scheduled move of Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa to take the post of Arab League secretary-general as of 16 May. Moussa, it is no secret, is very keen on reconciliation between Iraq and Kuwait. He is also determined, once he takes up his new position, to give the Arab League a clear role in settling Arab differences.
"So, once in the league, Moussa will make sure to encourage all possible mechanisms that aim for a reconciliation between Iraq and Kuwait. But this will be no walk in the park," commented an Egyptian diplomatic source.
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