Unpredictable and potentially contentious is how most observers view the upcoming Arab summit to be chaired by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, writes Dina Ezzat It looks like it is going to convene on time and in its scheduled place of the Libyan city of Sirt. The annual Arab summit is due to open 27 March and to close the following day under the rotated chairmanship of none other than Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader, who insists that he is not a president because the Libyan people rule themselves. "Preparations are already underway in Sirt and things seem to be falling into place in anticipation of the arrival of the secretary-general (of the Arab League) and the permanent representatives on 23 March to kick off the preparatory phase of the summit," commented an Arab League official who came back this week from Sirt after having been a member of a delegation that routinely inspects summit preparations. Meanwhile, invitations for the summit have been sent. Representatives of Gaddafi have been in the capitals of Arab League member states to invite heads of state to attend in Sirt. "Lebanon declined to accept the invitation because it was extended to a body that has no administrative prerogative to receive it," stated a communiqué issued by the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tuesday. A Libyan envoy had tried earlier in the day to present the summit invitation to the Lebanese embassy in Syria, but Lebanon's ambassador in Damascus declined to accept the invitation on the basis that he is not entitled to. Speculation has been rife right from the beginning over Lebanon's participation in view of a long-time dispute over the fate of Lebanon's Shia spiritual figure Moussa Al-Sadr who allegedly disappeared in Libya, eliminated on Gaddafi's orders. Tripoli has traditionally shrugged off the blame. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has bowed to the demands of the Shia population in Lebanon and decided not to take part in the summit himself. Sunni Prime Minister of Lebanon Saad Al-Hariri eventually followed in declining to participate. "It would be unwise for him to show insensitivity to the Shia," and to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shia figure himself, commented a Lebanese diplomat who asked for his name to be withheld. And it is out of the question for the foreign minister of Lebanon, a Shia himself, to head his country's delegation to the summit. It now rests upon the secretariat of the Arab League to fix the problem, according to the comments of the same Lebanese diplomat. The Arab League secretary-general would have to find a way to get a Libyan envoy to find his way to Beirut with the invitation, or else Lebanon would consider itself uninvited, the same diplomat added. Moussa, who had in earlier press statements affirmed that Lebanon will be invited and will be present, made no immediate public reaction to the diplomatic fix that landed on him. And if he manages to find a way around this problem, he would then need to find a way to handle the demand forward by Lebanese Shia for the Gaddafi chaired summit to call for an inquiry into the fate of Al-Sadr. "This is the problem with this next summit. It is packed with the unpredictability that comes with the style of Colonel Gaddafi," commented an Egyptian diplomat on condition of anonymity. This and other Arab diplomats said they feared the direct style of the Libyan leader in expressing his views. Arab leaders are not exempted from Gaddafi's uninhibited remarks. The Arab summit of 2003, hosted in Egypt on the eve of the US war on Iraq, was venue to a furious row between Gaddafi and Saudi monarch King Abdullah due to a remark made by the Libyan leader over what he portrayed as the Saudi role in encouraging Western -- especially American -- influence in the Arab Gulf. Tension between Tripoli and Riyadh has been delicately contained since, but it is still not clear whether or not King Abdullah will find his way to Sirt or delegate an envoy. The level of participation is a typical subject of debate with the countdown to any Arab summit. The many Arab squabbles and the de facto camps within Arab politics usually make room for a few no-shows at the highest Arab congregation. President Hosni Mubarak missed the 2008 and 2009 summits that convened in Syria and Qatar, by now Egypt's harshest Arab adversaries. Speculation about reconciliation between Mubarak and Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad has been rife over the past few weeks. But reunion prophecies between the once close Arab allies remain to be fulfilled. It seems now unlikely that the Sirt summit would serve as a venue for this four-year pursued reconciliation. Egyptian officials say that due to his health condition it doesn't look like President Mubarak will be able to make it to Sirt. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif is said by the same officials to be preparing to head the Egyptian delegation to the summit. "Or it might be just the minister [of foreign affairs, Ahmed Abul- Gheit]," according to one Egyptian official. In one sense the agenda of the summit so far seems to replicate "every summit agenda": the Arab-Israeli struggle, developments in civil war- torn Arab countries like Somalia, the situation in Iraq, Arab economic, cultural and scientific cooperation, and relations with Iran and Turkey. On the other hand, this particular summit will not necessarily be smooth despite the already-in- motion drafting machinery of the League secretariat. The total failure of international -- not excluding American -- and Arab diplomacy to get Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to agree to the minimum requirements of the peace process make it difficult for Arab capitals pressing for negotiations to be resumed. "During the last meeting [of the Arab peace initiative] they told us that we need to give the Americans a chance to restart the peace negotiations, but the following day Netanyahu shrugged Washington off and announced plans to construct new settlements in East Jerusalem," commented one Syrian diplomat. Earlier this month, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim declined to give the consent of Damascus for an otherwise collective Arab green light offered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks with Israel for four months, through the indirect channel of US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell, despite continuous Israeli construction of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem that should be the capital of a future Palestinian state. The denunciations levelled against Netanyahu's decision from Washington, the European Union and the UN so far failed to get the Israeli premier to change course. This week speaking at the Arab League, EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton promised that Brussels would use its influence with Tel Aviv on the settlement issue. Arab diplomats welcomed the European position but do not expect it to have much effect. If Netanyahu is willing to escalate tension with Washington it is unrealistic to expect him to bow to European pressure, agree Arab diplomats. So will the upcoming summit announce a cancellation of indirect talks from the Arab side? Unlikely, say Arab peace process diplomats. "The idea behind going to these proximity talks is that Abbas is out of alternatives," commented one Palestinian diplomat. According to an Egyptian diplomat, the US is still expecting a continuous Arab "understanding", especially that Washington has been openly critical of Netanyahu's actions. Meanwhile, it is not clear how the alternative to indirect talks proposed by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa -- to solicit the intervention of the UN Security Council -- could work in the absence of American and European sympathy to this move. One thing is certain: the fate of the peace process, especially on the Palestinian Israeli track, and the rationality of further talks with the Netanyahu government will be subject to considerable debate in Sirt. The debate will surely be rough if Gaddafi goes ahead with proposals to invite representatives of Hamas, the political adversaries of Abbas. Abbas had already expressed his contempt for this proposal, leading to a row with Gaddafi that Egypt tried to mediate. Iraq post US withdrawal (should the August deadline for the massive pullout of US troops be honoured by US President Barack Obama) will also be on the agenda of the Sirt summit. A senior Iraqi diplomat said that his country's delegation would call on Arab states to step up their diplomatic and economic presence in Iraq. The failure of Arab and Western mediation to end the rift between the Khartoum regime of President Omar Al-Bashir and the Darfur rebels will certainly be raised by the Arab summit. Some sources suggest that Gaddafi is also toying with the idea of inviting some of the rebel leaders to Sirt to broker a deal there. Another issue on the agenda is the fate of the League's secretary-general. The second term of Moussa expires in May next year. Speculation has already been rife that the end of Moussa's term will also end a monopoly that Cairo has otherwise kept, by tradition and not by law, on the seat of the secretary-general, except for a few years when the headquarters was moved from Egypt to Tunis to protest against the unilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed by late president Anwar El-Sadat. "The secretary-general of the Arab League will remain Egyptian," said Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit in an interview on Egyptian TV earlier this week. But Arab diplomats from the Maghreb and Mashreq say their capitals were startled by the remark and that it defies the charter of the 60-year plus pan-Arab organisation. No official reaction was forthcoming from Algeria or Qatar, whose officials have spoken openly about rotating position of secretary-general. Moussa said that the issue is not on the agenda of the summit. Nonetheless, Arab diplomats agree that it will be a subject of consultations when Arab leaders convene in Sirt. According to Moussa, more attention should be paid now to repairing the cracks in the Arab order, and to living up to the political, security, economic and ecological challenges that face the 22 member states of the League.
