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The unfinished task
Dina Ezzat
Published in
Al-Ahram Weekly
on 05 - 04 - 2001
In
Amman
last week, the Arabs set out to achieve reconcilliation, support the Palestinian Intifada and bolster the Arab League. Dina Ezzat, who was in the
Jordanian
capital for the summit, appraises the results
The unfinished task
A strong political will is needed if post-summit consultations on the
Iraq
issue are to lead to reconciliation
The work of the political committee that King Abdullah of
Jordan
was authorised to lead by the recent Arab summit to deal with the
Iraqi
problem has yet to be launched. And when, and as some Arab diplomats say if, it is launched it will have to be backed by a strong Arab political will so that they can bear fruit.
Also deemed necessary for the success of any efforts on the
Iraq
-
Kuwait
reconciliation is a US understanding for the need to end the decade-long suffering of the
Iraqi
people as a result of sanctions imposed after
Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait
in August 1990.
In fact, it is accepted in the Arab political backstage that without US approval, any efforts to close the file of the
Iraq
-
Kuwait
dispute will not lead to any true reconciliation.
"The
Iraq
-
Kuwait
affair is not strictly an Arab issue; it is an international issue. This is something that we
Kuwaitis
cannot ignore -- not even if our Arab brethren who failed to get Saddam out of
Kuwait
in 1990 told us otherwise," commented one
Kuwaiti
Foreign Ministry source.
So far King Abdullah of
Jordan
has neither started his consultations on the matter as authorised by the summit nor named the countries that he will take on board in the projected reconciliation committee. "It is unlikely that this will happen before he comes back from
Washington
later this month," commented one Arab diplomat.
The current state of relations between
Iraq
and
Kuwait
and the possibilities of a reconciliation between the two neighbouring countries have consumed most, if not all, of the efforts of the Arab summit held last week in the
Jordanian
capital
Amman
.
Arab foreign ministers who met in
Cairo
for their regular twice-yearly session in mid-March and later in the month to prepare for the Arab summit failed to get Said Al-Sahhaf,
Iraq
's foreign minister and Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed,
Kuwait
's minister of foreign affairs, to agree to a compromise that could accommodate the
Iraqi
request for an unconditional rehabilitation and the
Kuwaiti
demand for security guarantees. The summit did not succeed where the foreign ministers failed and no resolution was agreed upon with regard to the
Iraq
-
Kuwait
affair. The personal intervention of several heads of state, including those who sided with or against Saddam during his invasion of
Kuwait
, failed to get the
Kuwaitis
and
Iraqis
to agree to the compromise language.
Both the
Kuwaiti
and
Iraqi
delegations seemed convinced that it was the other side's intransigence that aborted chances of agreeing on a resolution to be adopted by the summit.
Kuwait
says it agreed to all
Baghdad
's requests with regard to the lifting of sanctions but that it "legitimately insisted on sufficient guarantees that
Iraq
will respect
Kuwait
's independence and has no plans to re-invade
Kuwait
."
Iraq
says that the
Kuwaiti
delegation had no alternative but to go along with increasingly pressing Arab demands to lift sanctions on
Iraq
but was meanwhile making "illegitimate pre-conditions" regarding the language in which the "security guarantees" were to be spelled out.
"They insisted that the proposed resolutions should read as follows:
Iraq
will respect the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of
Kuwait
. This suggested that this is not currently the case. We couldn't have condoned this," Al-Sahhaf told a press conference after the summit ended.
"This is totally untrue," argued a senior
Kuwaiti
diplomat. "On the eve of the summit 16 Arab states that included both
Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia agreed on a language that included a call for the UN Security Council to move towards lifting sanctions off
Iraq
and a call for
Baghdad
to publicly abandon any territorial claims on
Kuwaiti
land but the
Iraqi
delegation refused to accept it," he said.
However, during the closing session of the summit last Wednesday, Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid interrupted his reading of the final declaration of the summit to read a note he was handed. The note stated agreement to delegate King Abdullah, the chair of the Arab summit for the next year, to pursue further consultations, in coordination with the Arab League secretary-general and other Arab leaders, in an effort to reach a settlement of the
Iraq
-
Kuwait
dispute.
This move -- although in and by itself was not seen as sufficient to induce change in the Arab, or for that matter international approach towards
Iraq
-- was viewed as the first step on the one-thousand-mile road.
While reading the
Amman
declaration Abdel-Meguid was passed an insertion on the
Iraq
issue that came as a result of last-minute consultations. The extra lines that were included in the declaration made a general reference to the need for Arab countries to avoid "the use of force or the threat thereof" to settle disputes. It, however, included clear language on the sanctions issue: "We Arab leaders declare... a call to lift sanctions off
Iraq
." In their
Amman
Declaration, Arab leaders also made a general call for all Arab countries "to rise above their differences and move towards realising Arab reconciliation" to best serve Arab national security interests.
But since the summit ended not much has happened to suggest that a further step will be taken. Actually,
Kuwait
's Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed was quoted in the national
Kuwaiti
press as telling close aides that
Kuwait
's conciliatory political line as expressed at the summit is no longer valid since
Iraq
did not move to meet it halfway.
"This statement could have been made in response to the harsh criticism to which the
Kuwaiti
delegation was subjected from
Kuwaitis
who are opposed to any reconciliation with
Iraq
. But if it was a reflection of a genuine change of heart then the little that was achieved in
Amman
is going to be undermined," said an Arab diplomatic source.
The future of Arab moves on
Iraq
seems to have been put on hold pending a clear US stance, particularly in relation to
Washington
's plans to replace the current sanctions imposed on
Iraq
with so-called "smart sanctions," and also in anticipation of clearer policy indicators from both
Kuwait
and
Baghdad
.
A possible future catalyst in this respect, observers and diplomats agree, is the scheduled move of Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa to take the post of Arab League secretary-general as of 16 May. Moussa, it is no secret, is very keen on reconciliation between
Iraq
and
Kuwait
. He is also determined, once he takes up his new position, to give the Arab League a clear role in settling Arab differences.
"So, once in the league, Moussa will make sure to encourage all possible mechanisms that aim for a reconciliation between
Iraq
and
Kuwait
. But this will be no walk in the park," commented an Egyptian diplomatic source.
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