Cairo was the site of intensive preparations for the upcoming Arab summit. Gamal Essam El-Din reports Egypt hosted three senior Arab officials this week, as well as Joh Chok Tong, the Singaporean prime minister who visited Cairo on Wednesday to promote economic and scientific cooperation between his country and Egypt. Streamlining the performance of the Arab League and preparing for this March's Arab summit, meanwhile, figured prominently on the agenda of two-day talks between President Hosni Mubarak and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The high-level delegation accompanying Saleh also discussed economic relations between Egypt and Yemen, as well as the possibility of establishing a free trade zone that could help boost the volume of commercial exchange between the two nations. On 10 February, Mubarak said Egypt and Yemen would both be offering the summit initiatives on upgrading the Arab League's performance. Saleh described the two initiatives' main thrusts as being nearly identical, both aiming to further empower the Arab League. "We hope that the next Arab summit will live up to Arab expectations on Arab solidarity and integration," Saleh said. "We all agree that the Arab League must play a greater role in attaining this solidarity." A day earlier, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher had said that several Arab countries have drafted initiatives that deal with the repercussions of the bloody Palestinian- Israeli conflict and the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Maher said the Yemeni initiative proposes the formation of an Arab politico-economic federation that could later become an integrated Arab bloc. Arabs should adopt unified, rather than separate, positions when dealing with the outside world, Saleh said, so as not to allow superpowers to meddle in their affairs. "The Arab countries will continue to face problems as long as they refrain from dealing with the outside world as one bloc," Saleh said. Informed sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that Saudi Arabia would likely present the summit with its two-year old initiative aimed at securing peace between the Arab world and Israel. Originally submitted by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz to the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut, the initiative proposes that the Arab world normalise relations with Israel in return for the latter's withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied after June 1967. Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo next month, meanwhile, will be scrutinising the different reform initiatives as they prepare for the March summit. In an interview on Egyptian television last week, President Mubarak said the summit's agenda should only deal with a few clear-cut and realistic proposals. "This will make things easier to implement," Mubarak said, "than adopting a large and unrealistic agenda of proposals that will end up as a failure." President Mubarak also met with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri on Monday. The two leaders discussed the current state of the Arab world, particularly in light of a new transatlantic initiative aimed at establishing peace, security and democracy in "the Greater Middle East". Al-Hariri said, "Arab leaders must be fully aware of this initiative's dimensions in order to react to it properly." According to Al-Hariri, "this initiative was disseminated by the United States, although [the US] did not officially inform Arab countries of it. Everything Arabs know about this initiative comes from the media." Lebanon, Al-Hariri said, fully supports all initiatives aimed at upgrading the Arab League. Under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, however, Israel had stubbornly rejected all Arab peace initiatives, including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's. Boosting Lebanese-Egyptian trade also figured highly on Al-Hariri's Cairo agenda. His delegation included Lebanon's economy, finance and agriculture ministers. With Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, they discussed boosting Lebanese-Egyptian trade numbers from $225 million a year to no less than half a billion in the very near future. Al-Hariri said several bureaucratic obstacles stood in the way of such goals. A joint committee will meet in May to develop a new strategy towards "developing bilateral economic relations and preparing for the full customs exemptions that will be applied in the framework of the Greater Arab Free Trade Zone", Al-Hariri said. President Mubarak also met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei this week to review efforts aimed at bringing the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table. The Egyptian president made it clear that he had been encouraging a meeting between Qurei and Sharon. Qurei, who has refused to meet Sharon while Israel continues building its controversial security wall, suddenly decided last week to allow the Palestinian negotiations minister, Saeb Erekat, to meet with the head of Sharon's office in order to prepare for a meeting between the two prime ministers. "Another meeting will be held on 15 February to prepare for the meeting with Sharon," Qurei said after meeting with President Mubarak, "which I hope will be at the end of this month." According to informed sources, Qurei was in Cairo to brief President Mubarak on the steps adopted by the Palestinian Authority to help achieve peace with the Israelis. Foreign Minister Maher and Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman visited Palestine in late January in an attempt to revive the moribund peace process and push for a stop to attacks on both sides. Maher said Egypt is closely following the preparatory meetings between the Palestinians and the Israelis. "This is a very positive sign and we hope more will follow," Maher said. President Mubarak also telephoned Arafat on Monday. Some observers think that Egypt urged Arafat to reform the mainstream Palestinian faction Fatah, and that the 7 February resignation of 350 Fatah members was part of this dynamic. Prominent Fatah member Sakhr Habash said the Palestinians appreciated Egypt's eagerness to safeguard Palestinian interests against conspiracies. As for Sharon's startling 2 February announcement regarding his intention to evacuate all Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, Qurei said he hopes Sharon follows through, "and that he will [also] move forward towards dismantling all Jewish settlements on the West Bank within the framework of the land for peace formula." On Wednesday, Mubarak visited Turkey to discuss political and economic relations between Cairo and Ankara. Ahmed Fathallah, Egypt's ambassador to Turkey, said long-term coordination between Egypt and Turkey had played a strong role in sparing the region from many a crisis. Economic relations and the situation in Iraq also figured prominently on Mubarak's Ankara agenda. Before flying to Turkey, Mubarak met with Singaporean Prime Minister Joh Chok Tong. Tong's visit, part of Egypt's long-term strategy of fostering economic and political relations with Southeast Asian countries, was the first of its kind for any Singaporean official.
