Syria hopes to play an important role at the forthcoming Libyan Arab summit, underlining its efforts to achieve greater Arab recognition, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus Arab leaders will meet in the Libyan coastal city of Surt on 27 and 28 March for the next in a series of Arab summits that have become an annual event since the beginning of the century. At this year's summit, Syria will be working on attaining Arab recognition of its regional role, the summit being of central importance to the Syrian leadership, which has sought to strengthen ties with the other Arab states in order to enhance solidarity and cooperation. Communications about the summit have intensified between Damascus and Tripoli and other Arab capitals, and messages have been couriered by top Syrian officials traveling east and west. Syrian Vice-President Farouk Al-Sharae, his political adviser Bothayna Shaaban, Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim, Parliamentary Speaker Mahmoud Al-Abrashi, Prime Minister Mohamed Nagui Ettri, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Al-Maqdad and other Syrian ministers have all toured Libya and other Arab countries over the past three months. On 24 January, Syrian President was briefly in Tripoli with the country's foreign minister for talks with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi that are believed to have dealt with preparations for the summit, how to overcome inter-Arab differences, and the desire to enhance efforts to make the summit conclude in results serving common Arab interests. During their trip to Libya, Al-Sharae, Shaaban and Al-Maqdad also discussed issues relating to the summit with Gaddafi. According to Shaaban, the overall theme of the summit will be "no divisions" and "consultations and coordination among all Arab leaders to serve the interests of the Arab nation." This indicates that Syria is to some extent confident about the summit's outcome. Meanwhile, Al-Sharae, accompanied by several Syrian officials, also toured the Maghreb countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania, carrying a message from Al-Assad about problems in the Arab world and how to resolve them, "in order to enable the upcoming Arab summit to reach a positive outcome on the road to greater Arab solidarity." Sources in Syria have indicated that Damascus will work on soothing inter-Arab quarrels at the summit, in order to focus on Palestinian reconciliation, the Israeli military threat and other issues on which there is already a measure of agreement. It is clear that Syria aspires to play an influential role at this year's summit, which was not the case at last year's gathering. The change of heart has come as a result of developments that Syria believes qualify it to become a prominent Arab and regional player, including the reconciliation with Saudi Arabia and the exchange of official and personal visits between Al-Assad and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz. Damascus has also reached a solution on the issue of Lebanon that is acceptable to Arab and international parties. It has obtained partial recognition of its role in reconciling the Palestinian factions because of its ties with the main Palestinian parties such as Hamas and the other resistance factions. At the same time, Syria has improved its relations with Europe after years of boycott and isolation. It has grown closer to Turkey and tempered the sharp relations it had with the US. However, Damascus's ambitions at the Surt summit will not go hand in hand with its cautious relations with Egypt. This is something Syria's leadership is well aware of and has been working on over the past few months. Damascus has announced that it hopes to end tensions and reach some form of agreement between the two countries. Such efforts were demonstrated by the warm welcome with which Syria received Egypt's minister of trade and industry, Rachid Mohamed Rachid, when he visited the country last week. Rachid is the highest-ranking Egyptian official to visit Damascus since tensions began three years ago as a result of Israel's war on Hizbullah in Lebanon. Syrian officials, including Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdullah Al-Dardiri and Minister of Economy Lamiaa Assi, said that Rachid's visit was a natural development in relations between the two countries. "It is a landmark in relaunching cooperation and working as a team," they said, adding that investment opportunities for the two sides were "infinite". Syria's official and semi-official media have also made an about-turn in covering Egypt. Egypt is no longer criticised and instead is praised in the Syrian media, which now reports on "Syria's desire for a new and extensive relationship with its older sister." Meanwhile, some observers believe that Syria has been working on reviving its ties with Libya over recent months in order to establish a Damascus-Tripoli link that it hopes to add to its Damascus-Ankara-Tehran-Beirut network. Damascus has exerted itself over the past three months to improve its ties with all the Arab countries, and it will be presenting a proposal for a mechanism to manage inter- Arab disagreements at the forthcoming summit. Its aim is to obtain the support of all the Arab countries for its ideas, as a way of carving out a leadership role for itself among the countries attending. Damascus is expected to emphasise its right to the occupied Golan Heights, to lobby for the ending of the US sanctions against Syria, and to highlight the fact that overall Arab interests require all parties to overcome their differences. It is expected that Syria will not take hardline positions at the summit, except against Israel, and that it will moderate its comments on the other Arab states in an attempt to recover Syria's stature among its peers and their recognition of its role. Observers assert that Damascus's ambitions at the Surt summit are clear, although they overlook issues that will be scrutinised by the Arab states before they approve of a prominent role for Syria. These include the country's ties with Iran, its relations with Hizbullah, which has lost many friends in the Arab world, and its ambiguous role in Palestinian reconciliation. There are also other issues on which Syria needs to explain its position before it can be accepted as a regional leader.
