THE FOUR-WAY meeting bringing together President Hosni Mubarak, his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al-Assad, Saudi King Abdullah and Emir of Kuwait Ahmed Al-Gaber Al-Sabah in Riyadh is an attempt to move closer to reconciliation ahead of the Arab Summit scheduled to take place in Doha on 30 March, writes Sherine Bahaa. Following the mini-summit, Egypt's presidential spokesman Ambassador Suleiman Awwad said Mubarak came to Riyadh for genuine Arab reconciliation. Describing the talks as successful, Awwad stressed that current internal and international challenges require normalising Arab relations. "President Mubarak hopes that reconciliation will expand to include other Arab parties." Earlier this week Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit, accompanied by the country's General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, visited Riyadh and delivered a message to the king. Its contents are not known. Ahead of the summit Mubarak said: "Egypt has responded favourably to calls for reconciliation, despite the fact that some continue to overshadow the climate of reconciliation with positions that reflect schemes forged outside the Arab region" . There is a lot the Doha summit needs to discuss: the International Criminal Court indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir; a Netanyahu-Lieberman coalition and a new US administration in the White House are all hot issues on the table. But if anything constructive is to emerge from Doha some inter-Arab differences must be hammered out. Egyptian sources say that the Riyadh meeting was planned to allow leaders to address "the whole regional scene", including the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yesterday's meeting added momentum to the process of Arab reconciliation launched by the Saudi king at January's economic summit in Kuwait. Israel's 22-day military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip had served to worsen already strained relations between moderate countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and those which sided with the Islamist movement such as Syria and Qatar. Damascus has been excluded from any Arab coordination for years now, during which time it has allied itself ever more closely with Iran and radical groups like Hizbullah and Hamas. Relations between Syria and other Arab countries soured after Al-Assad in 2006 described the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as "halfmen" for failing to stop Israel's assault against Lebanon that year. The Saudis were angered by Syria's alleged complicity in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Al-Hariri, a Saudi protégé. Syria has steadfastly denied any involvement in the murder. With the Hariri case in the hands of a special tribunal in The Hague since 1 March Saudi Arabia has now decided to work to foster regional unity, the goal being to isolate Iran. Wednesday's meeting focussed on moving beyond differences and preventing Iran from exploiting them. It was also an attempt to pull Syria in behind Egypt's effort to broker talks on a new unity government in the occupied territories. Talks between Palestinian factions are taking place in Cairo under the sponsorship of the Egyptian authorities and with Saudi backing. Any new Saudi overtures must be viewed in the light of Riyadh's announcement that it intends to give a new push to the 2002 Arab peace initiative. The initiative offers Israel blanket recognition from all the Arab states in return for establishing a Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders and the principle of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The Saudis have recently called on Washington and Israel to buy into the initiative, warning that the offer has a sell-by date. "Israel must realise that the choice between peace and war will not be available constantly and that the Arab initiative on the table today will not be on the table forever," Abdullah said at the 19 January Kuwait summit. (see p.11)
