Tunisia vexed by Egyptian offer to host summit

Tunis, 30 March, Al-Ahram Weekly Online
By Dina Ezzat

A few days after having indefinitely postponed the Arab summit that it was supposed to host and chair, Tunisia is now moving to obstruct an Egyptian effort to promptly arrange for an alternative date and venue for the summit.

Tunisian officials and the state-controlled press have been making no effort to hide their country's discomfort with Egyptian diplomatic moves in the aftermath of Tunis' unexpected delaying of the summit.

"Tunisian President Zein El-Abidine Ben Ali is currently conducting consultations to decide on a new date for the summit that Tunisia still insists on chairing and holding," Tunisian Foreign Minister El-Habib Ben Yehiya said Monday following a meeting with Ben Ali.

Tunis was scheduled to host the Arab summit on Monday and Tuesday. However, on Saturday evening as Arab foreign ministers were completing preparations for the convocation of the summit, the Tunisian president called his foreign minister and asked him to tell the foreign ministers that he wants to delay the summit indefinitely. Ben Ali made his decision without consulting with Arab leaders and refused to meet with the Arab foreign ministers, who wanted to hear an explanation for the decision.

Although the initial impression given was that the summit was cancelled for all practical purposes, not postponed, two days later Ben Ali received Ben Yehiya to discuss preparations for the summit's convocation. On Monday, Ben Yehiya said that his president asked Arab foreign ministers to meet at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League within the next two weeks to prepare for a convocation of the summit in Tunis at an unnamed future date.

Ben Yehiya's statement came hours after his ministry issued a written statement, attributed to an official source, to indirectly criticise Egypt's offer to host the Arab summit. The statement said that Tunis "finds it surprising that some attempt to ignore the real inter-Arab differences" that led to the cancellation of the Arab summit on Monday and Tuesday. The Tunisian decision, the statement said, is not at all related to the venue of the summit, "and consequently, all attempts to change the venue are in fact attempts to confuse and ignore the real reasons leading to the decision to postpone the summit."

This same line is being repeated throughout the Tunisian media. State-controlled Tunisian TV has been constantly airing interviews with officials and state-affiliated commentators to lend their support to the official Tunisian argument that the delay was due to "major inter-Arab differences" related to reform in the Arab world.

In a two-hour programme that has been aired multiple times on Tunis Satellite and national channels, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Hatem Ben Salem insisted that Tunis, "with its given commitment to modernisation", could not have agreed to a host and chair a summit that failed to show clear Arab commitment to matters of democratisation, human rights and women's empowerment.

"These are issues of the future and we cannot keep our heads in the sand," Ben Salem said. "Tunis could not have afforded to undermine its credibility by agreeing to just any resolutions or any communiqué that is issued but fails to deliver real changes."

This propaganda has certainly left a strong impact on the Tunisian public opinion. Tunisians speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly were openly hostile towards the Egyptian offer to host the summit.

"Why is Egypt doing this? Why does the Egyptian president offer to host the summit? Tunis did not say that it wasn't going to host it. We simply asked for time for better preparations," said one man.

Many others bluntly accused Egypt of deliberately working to obstruct agreements in Tunis in a move towards hijacking the summit. "This is what Egypt wants, to make every other country looks bad. Egyptians always want to be the ones who worry about Arabs interests. Well, if they want Arabs they can have them. We are not interested in Arabs anyway," another Tunisian told the Weekly.

On Tuesday, after two days of elaborate justifications of the decision to postpone the summit indefinitely, the Tunisian press began launching propaganda indirectly attacking Egypt's offer to host the summit.

The papers stressed that it is "misleading" for Egypt to portray the issue to the Arab public opinion as one of venue and date, when the Arab leaderships cannot even agree on the content of the summit. Some commentators even went so far as to argue that it would be better that the summit not convene at all rather than papering over the cracks to present a show of unity.

According to Tunisian professors of international law interviewed by the press on Tuesday, "it is illegal to contemplate another venue for the summit in view of the fact that Tunis declared the postponement and not cancellation of the summit".

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Egypt offers to host Arab summit

Tunis, 28 March 2004- Al-Ahram Weekly Online
By Dina Ezzat

Egypt today offered to host the Arab summit after Tunisia suddenly announced yesterday that it would not host the summit. President Hosni Mubarak expressed "astonishment and regret" at the Tunisian decision. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa welcomed Egypt's decision to host the summit. Speaking to reporters an hour before leaving Tunis, Moussa praised Egypt and its president for taking a "leading role" in resolving the crisis.

No date has been announced for the would-be Arab summit.

Moussa said that consultations are already under way among Arab League members to decide their next step. "It's very important that we move on and we move on fast." Moussa said. He added "that only a serious show of political resolve can contain the current situation." Moussa declined to comment on speculations by Arab Gulf countries that he will resign from his post.

Asked whether or not he intends to step down, Moussa said "this is a moment for contemplation".

Arab foreign ministers expressed their disappointment today over the unexplained Tunisian decision to delay the summit.

Speaking to reporters on his way out of Tunis, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr El-Korabi said "I'm very disappointed. I don't understand why our brothers in Tunis decided to do this." El-Korabi added that this is a very bad moment for any reluctance in Arab political resolve. "We have so many challenges and this was not the way for us Arabs to live up to these challenges," El-Korabi said.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher said that Arab countries were still awaiting a clear explanation from Tunis. Speaking on condition of anonymity, Jordanian diplomats said that Amman might be willing to host the summit.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa also expressed disappointed over the Tunisian decision. The Syrian foreign minister — whose country a few days ago had initiated a diplomatic move to delay the summit and was met by Tunisian refusal — said "there were no developments to merit this decision."

"We have already completed some 80 per cent of the work we have to do so I don't understand why it was decided that we were having major differences." The foreign ministers of Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria all denied that there had been a dispute significant enough to justify this decision.

The Arab summit was scheduled for 29 and 30 March. Tunis, Arab diplomatic sources claim, did not consult other Arab leaders or notify anybody prior to publicly announcing this decision.

"At this point we are only guessing. There was no prelude for this shock. Work was going on as usual and progress was being made and then the Tunisians threw this bomb in everybody's face," one senior Arab diplomatic source told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Moussa was having a closed meeting with Arab foreign ministers on Saturday evening at around 10pm local time (9pm GMT) when Tunisian Foreign Minister El-Habib Ben Yehiya excused himself to receive a call from his president. Back in the meeting room, Ben Yehiya asked the foreign ministers to finish their work and leave for dinner. When participants in the meeting protested that they still had an hour or two of work left, he reportedly said "It is over. There will be no summit. The President just notified me that Tunisia is apologising. Tunisia is not going to host the summit."

As Ben Yehiya was breaking the news to the foreign ministers, an assistant was busy finalising a press communiquŽ. "It was made clear during the discussions of the foreign ministers that there are clear differences on a number of proposals that Tunisia had made in relation to the consequential issue of reform and modernisation in the Arab world especially in relation to democracy, human rights, women's rights and the role of the civil society," the communiquŽ read. As a result, it said, Tunis is "regrettably" delaying the summit.

"It was a shock to everyone in the room and we asked to meet with the Tunisian president to discuss the matter, but our request could not have been granted due to the fact that it was too late for the President, who has been down with a bad cold all day," Moussa said.

Moussa and Ben Yehiya were the last to leave the conference centre in the Tunisian capital, and refused to make any comments to the crowd of journalists that had gathered as the news spread.

"This is a total shock. We left at around 9pm and they were telling us that the meetings were to last for another couple of hours and that there might be a session on Sunday morning. There was no sign of sharp disagreements. Arab ministers always have their quarrels and they do not cancel the summit meetings," commented one senior Arab affairs correspondent. He added, "Women and human rights?!? Last year Arab foreign ministers were fighting over whether or not to stand united in the face of the American occupation of Iraq but the summit was not cancelled. Something must have happened to make the Tunisians take this decision."