Ten Arab leaders to attend Baghdad summit: Iraqi official
At least 10 Arab leaders will attend the Arab summit in Baghdad, Iraq’s ambassador to the Arab League has said.
“The other countries will be represented at the summit on March 29 by officials at various levels, according to their conditions,” Qais Al Azzawi said, quoted by Kuwaiti daily Al Nahar .
The ambassador said that the summit in Damascus in 2008 was attended by nine Arab leaders and that the Baghdad summit would host more leaders despite the special conditions in some Arab countries.
“There is consensus about the success of the summit and uprisings will dominate the issues on the agenda,” he said.
The envoy denied reports that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain were working on shifting the summit venue from Baghdad to Cairo or Riyadh.
“There is nothing related to this baseless claim. I have met Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, as well as Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s foreign minister, and both said that their countries would take part in the summit,” he said, adding that Baghdad was fully ready to host the annual gathering.
“The technical advance teams sent by the Arab League have confirmed over the last year that Baghdad was ready to host the Arab leaders,” he said.
The ambassador also denied reports that the summit would last only three hours.
“The summit will start with preparatory meetings of the economy and finance ministers on March 27 and the foreign ministers on March 28. The leaders will meet on March 29. So, we have three days, and not three hours,” he said, quoted by the daily.
Iraqi daily Al Sabah last week said that the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) would attend the summit.
However, on Sunday, Kuwaiti newspaper Alam Al Yom said that the GCC countries had a set of conditions that included not inviting Syrian President Basher Al Assad.
Other conditions, the daily said, referred to the possibility for Arab countries to vote on a draft to declare “the Syrian government illegitimate and to support the Arab League decision to condemn the savage actions against those calling for Al Assad to step down.”
According to the report, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki expressed concerns about possible chaos following the change of regime in Syria and negative effects on Iraq, “particularly if extremist groups ruled the country.”
