Is Arab reconciliation at all possible, especially before the next Arab summit? asks Dina Ezzat It has been only a month since Qatar hosted the controversial summit on Gaza with the participation of some but not all Arab countries, mostly from the so-called hardliners, along with Iran, the most antagonising state for the so-called moderate camp, which includes Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Another summit that Qatar is hosting is causing more hiccups in the Arab world. This time, however, it is the regular Arab summit that Doha will chair in late March, in the wake of its co-hardliner Syria. Already Arab moderates, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are sending signals to Doha that their participation in the regular Arab summit maybe even lower-level than at the Damascus summit last March when President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan deliberately boycotted the highest level annual Arab congregation. During a meeting of nine foreign ministers -- all except Yemen members of the moderates camp -- it was agreed that their representation at the Doha summit is to be linked to Qatari behaviour in the coming weeks. The statement following the meeting that was held in the United Arab Emirates said that the assessment of the Qatari performance would be measured against its support, or lack thereof, for Hamas to subscribe to the year-plus truce that Egypt is trying to forge between Hamas and Israel and to a national reconciliation deal that Egypt is also working on securing an end to the animosity between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. If Qatar continued to play the spoiler of Egyptian efforts, the Arab ministers agreed that they would have only a low level of participation in the summit. This is not something that the Qataris would want to risk especially in view of the fact that Qatar is also planning to host the two- day Arab-Latin summit on the following day. Arab diplomats in Cairo agree that it would be especially embarrassing for the emir of Qatar to receive his Latin guests in the absence of Arab leaders. Indeed, aware of this sensitivity the moderates have also sent Qatar a clear signal that it should entertain no plans to invite Iran to the summit if it wishes to see their leaders even if only for the opening session. Last week, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia agreed with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa to initiate a careful effort of Arab reconciliation that the Saudi monarch had called for during a Kuwait Development summit held late last month. This week, Moussa initiated an action by visiting Yemen, Jordan and Qatar officials. Moussa has also been in touch with several other Arab capitals, especially Cairo and Damascus. In an attempt to save the Doha summit and the remainder of his term in office for the next three years, the secretary-general of the Arab League is appealing for an agreement of all member states to immediately and fully suspend all media attacks and counter-attacks. He is then hoping to get a set of rules agreed upon for the management of the most dividing issues on the agenda of Arab states: the management of relations and level of support for militant resistance movements (Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon) and the extent of relations, or in some cases, alliance between some Arab capitals and Tehran. So far, Moussa has approached Yemen in view of its relations with Syria, and Jordan in view of its relations with Hamas, as possible mediators. Qatar, the next chair of the Arab summit, accuses Moussa of succumbing to the Egyptian- Saudi foreign policy agenda. Moussa appealed to the emir to personally take the necessary steps to spare the next Arab summit from being a witness to further Arab divides. In the three capitals that he visited this week and during the consultations that he conducted Moussa told his interlocutors that the current state of Arab divisiveness cannot persist any longer as it has become the subject of complaints from other countries and organisations. Moussa got sympathy but no commitment to the ending of Arab differences. "Arab reconciliation is difficult but not impossible," Moussa said. What the Arab secretary-general did not say was whether or not it was possible to achieve this reconciliation before 25 March, the set date for the transfer of the Arab summit from the Syrian to the Qatar chairmanship.
