Will this year's Arab summit be any different from those in years past, asks Dina Ezzat On Saturday Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi will open the annual Arab summit convening this year under his presidency in Sirte. For two days Arab leaders or their representatives will have three main tasks to attend to. One obvious task is to get along with the moods of Gaddafi who might one day call on Arab leaders to establish an Arab union and maybe the following day ask for the division of some Arab states. Another task is to go through a volume of basically routine resolutions that cover a wide range of issues ranging from support of Somalia to the expansion of economic cooperation and the pursuit of scientific and technological cooperation. "They do not really look at these resolutions. They just take note of their titles and count on their foreign ministers to handle these issues," commented a retired Egyptian diplomat who served at the Arab Affairs Desk during his years in service. Position setting is the third and perhaps most crucial task for Arab leaders -- and/or their representatives -- at the Arab summit. The summit of 2003, only days prior to US aggression on Iraq, assess Arab diplomats, was the last high-level convention where participants really engaged in serious debate, some with the objective of getting former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to succumb to American demands for him to leave office, others with the objective of getting implicated Arab capitals to decline "facilitating the war on Iraq". As of 2004 the rules of the game changed. Organisers and participants in the Arab summit have become mainly interested to present a certain profile of their foreign policy: moderate or extremist. "The moderates are us who want a peaceful settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the extremists are those who are sympathetic -- or act sympathetic -- with Iran for their own interests," commented an Egyptian diplomat on condition of anonymity. The Sirte summit will be no exception to this recent rule, say Arab diplomats. Syria will call for the support of resistance movements when it knows that Egypt will not reach out to Hamas. Egypt will call for Arab capitals to refrain from serving the agenda of non-Arab powers when it knows that Damascus will not give up on its alliance with Tehran. Iraq will appeal to Arab countries to send their diplomatic and business missions to its cities when it knows that they would only do so upon agreement with the US. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, for whom this may be his penultimate summit, will also make his positions clear: Arabs should stop giving free concessions to Israel and even to the US; Arab economic and cultural ties should be strengthened to allow for the containment of conflicting political agendas; and Arab relations with their neighbours should be expanded and better managed. This year, Moussa is likely to especially underline the last point, particularly in regard to Turkey and Iran. Earlier this week, during a speech in Lebanon, Moussa called for the establishment of a "New Arab Neighbourhood Approach" that "could be led by the Arab League and to which Turkey could be the obvious member". Iran, Moussa said, could follow after candid Arab-Iranian dialogue. At the end of the two-day Arab leaders meeting, participants will get together for a group photo that usually has no more than 15 out of 22 Arab heads of state. "This is the average level of participation of leaders," commented an Arab League source. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is expected to be missing from this picture for the third consecutive year. In view of his health condition, Mubarak delegated Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif to head the Egyptian delegation to the summit. Mubarak missed the Arab summits in Qatar in 2009 and Damascus in 2008, as part of the position Egypt takes towards these two Arab states with close association with Tehran. What else might emerge from Sirte? "New things and ideas always come out of Libya," goes the motto chosen by Libya for the summit. (see pp. 8-12)
