[Dialogue] Looking for breakthroughs

[Harry Wainwright]

Colleagues, this might be a very hopeful sign. Peace, Harry 
  _____  


Looking for breakthroughs

Collective Arab efforts to address the ongoing crises in Iraq and Syria are
growing more intensive, reports Dina
<mailto:dezzat at ahram.org.eg?subject=Front%20Page%20::%20Looking%20for%20brea
kthroughs>  Ezzat 

Delegations begin arriving in Cairo tonight to take part in the three-day
meeting organised by the Arab League to examine ways to end the bloody
conflict that has for two years compounded the sufferings of a country
already wracked by the hardships of invasion.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari is expected to join 80 Iraqi
officials and representatives of Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and other ethnic and
religious factions at the Arab League Conference on Iraq, which opens on
Saturday at the league's headquarters. The foreign ministers of member
states of the Arab Ministerial Committee on Iraq, which includes Iraq,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt and Algeria -- the
current chair of the Arab summit -- are expected to attend. Invitations have
also been extended to the foreign ministers of Turkey and Iran, members of
the Iraq Neighbourhood Group. UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan will send an
envoy to the meeting.

In the run up to Saturday's opening Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa
will host a consultative meeting between participating foreign ministers on
Friday night, said Mohamed Al-Khamelishi, Arab League assistant
secretary-general. Alaa Rouchdi, Moussa's spokesman, said the Arab League
secretary-general will also hold advance meetings with members and heads of
the Iraqi delegations as well as with the 22 permanent representatives to
the league. 

"It must be made clear the meeting that opens on Saturday is not the
national accord conference Secretary-General Moussa proposed. This is a
preparatory meeting to which the Arab League has invited key political
forces to send representatives in order to agree on an agenda, venue and
time for the national accord conference," stressed Hesham Youssef, Moussa's
chief of staff. "Nobody should expect this meeting to deliver a pact of
national accord at the end of the three days. What we are hoping is to get
all the parties talking in the hope of creating a common agenda for the
future."

Not that anyone expects it to be easy given the number of unresolved
differences between the parties. 

Members of various Iraqi delegations insist their acceptance of the
invitation to come to Cairo does not signal a change in their positions and
they have made no promises to accept any compromises. 

Alongside the contentious issue of the scope and role of American forces
Iraqi delegates are expected to discuss the possibility of negotiating with
militant Iraqi groups that have been targeting Iraqi police and soldiers.
The question of whether or not to re-engage former Baath Party members who
were not close to the higher echelons of the toppled Iraqi regime,
especially in the army and intelligence, is also likely to be on the agenda.
It is, as one Iraqi politician pointed out, a particularly contentious point
"not just between Sunnis and Shias but even among Shias themselves".

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners, the majority Sunni, in US-controlled and
Iraqi-run prisons is also expected to be discussed. 

The role of Iraq's neighbours, especially Iran with its growing influence
over Iraq's Shia and Syria, alleged to support Sunni militants, could emerge
as a key issue dividing not just the Iraqi delegations but participating
foreign ministers.

Sources within the Arab League say are keen to avoid any confusing of issues
and insist the ongoing crisis between Washington and Damascus be dealt with
separately. Yet with the expected presence of Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk
Al-Sharaa in Cairo developments in the Syrian file are certain to be
discussed between Moussa, Abdel-Aziz Belkhadem, the representative of the
Algerian president, and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit.

A senior Arab diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly that while it is unlikely that
Detlev Mehlis, head of the international investigation into the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri, will agree
to Syria's proposal that he question six Syrian security officials at the
headquarters of the Arab League, there is a growing possibility that a deal
acceptable to both Syria and the Metlev can be brokered. The UN office in
Vienna is now being proposed as a possible venue for the interrogations
rather than the Monteverdi Hotel in Beirut, the headquarters of the
investigating team. 

"We do not want to get bogged down with the issue of the venue of the
investigation. What counts is to get to the truth of who killed Hariri,"
said Abul- Gheit. 

Several Arab countries are likely to use the opportunity of talks with
Al-Sharaa to encourage Syria to refrain from issuing provocative statements
on the role of the UN investigator or the Lebanese government, accused by
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in a major political address last Thursday
of hatching plots against Damascus on foreign orders. 

"It is important that Arab countries do not become enmeshed in unnecessary
confrontations. Egypt is doing its best to promote closer Arab rapport on
all fronts," Abul-Gheit said this week.

While in Cairo Al-Sharaa is expected to hear a great deal of plain-speaking
from Abul-Gheit and other Arab officials. The Syrian foreign minister will
also be briefed on the latest round of Egyptian-Saudi efforts to broker a
deal between Damascus and Washington. On Tuesday President Hosni Mubarak and
Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Ben Abdel-Aziz discussed the escalating rhetoric
between the two capitals and agreed it would be in Syria's interest to show
more flexibility, a line supported by the Arab League.

"The situation in the region is very problematic. It does not serve the
interests of the Arab peoples and we are trying very hard to push
developments back onto a more positive track," said Moussa.

C Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at:
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