Yemen and Egypt step in to rescue an ailing Arab League following one of the most embarrassing debacles in its long-checkered history, reports Peter Willems "Shocking", "Frustrating" and "Disappointing" were the words that came from Yemeni government officials after Tunisia cancelled the Arab summit late last Saturday. "The postponement of the Arab summit was very disappointing to me and all the ministers who met in Tunis," said Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi, who participated in the preliminary meetings of foreign ministers before the summit was scheduled to take place 29 and 30 March. But Yemen and Egypt did not sit idly by. Yemeni officials say Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak decided during a phone conversation on Sunday that the summit can be held in Cairo in the middle of April. "We are in the middle of discussions to decide on a date that the summit will be held in Cairo," Al-Qirbi told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I am optimistic, and am sure we will decide on a date." It is also reported that Saleh called several Arab leaders and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa to discuss the importance of holding the summit as soon as possible in Cairo. The Tunisian government claims that the summit was postponed due to different proposals given by Arab governments on democratic reform. Some say that foreign ministers in their meetings, which started last Friday, failed to reach a consensus on reform proposals submitted by five Arab nations -- Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Qatar and Tunisia. Al-Qirbi disagrees. "The ministers worked very hard in preparing for the summit. The ministers agreed on a declaration of reforms, and our preparations would have been completed within a couple of hours at the time the summit was postponed," said Al-Qirbi. Yemen has been viewed by analysts as a nation in the Middle East developing a democratic system. But along with many other Arab nations, the Yemeni government is critical of Washington's so-called "Greater Middle East Initiative" launched last month. Saleh has been promoting homegrown democracy in the Arab world but is against a political system delivered from the West. "External pressures on Arabs to make political, social and economic reforms in the Middle East would not make any difference because of the fact that these reforms should come from within," said Saleh at a demonstration in Sanaa last Tuesday, the day after Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated in Gaza. Yemen had plans to present its own peace initiative for the Middle East at the summit in Tunis. Yemen's "roadmap" for peace includes adding the Arab League to the international quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States that is attempting to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using its own map. It also proposes the use of an international protection force for Palestinians, the formulation and implementation of a "non-violence pledge" from both sides, and the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories Israel has occupied since the 1967 war. For war-torn Iraq, the Yemeni proposal calls for the Arab League, the United Nations and the US-led coalition to set up a committee to work on building security using international forces under UN command. An Iraqi sub-committee would draw a constitution, elections would be held in a year, and Iraqi forces would be up and running in two years. Although the re-launching of the Arab land-for-peace plan that won support at the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut was on the Tunis summit's agenda, Al-Qirbi said that ministers were open to Yemen's new initiatives. "During our meetings in Tunis, many countries welcomed the Yemeni initiative," said Al-Qirbi. "It does not conflict with the proposal put forth in Beirut. The Beirut proposal is the basis of our initiative." People in Yemen have expressed pessimism about the Arab League, however, expecting little in the way of concrete results from this or any Arab summit. "The leaders never do anything when they meet," said Hassan, a student at Sanaa University. "They can postpone or cancel summits because it doesn't really matter. Right now the Arabs are full of anger over the killing of Sheikh Yassin and we want action."
