Wrong-footed Arab governments on Sunday scrambled to rescue a summit that had been touted as a chance for them to embark on democratic change until host Tunisia announced it was calling it off at the 11th hour.
Egypt, expressing "astonishment and regret" at the fiasco, swiftly offered to host a replacement summit, but Tunisia rebuffed Cairo's attempt to seize the initiative and insisted it still had the right to stage the event.
"The problem has nothing to do with the location of the summit," which was to have opened here yesterday, the Tunisian foreign ministry said.
"Wanting to change the venue overshadows the real reasons" for the postponement, which was due to "serious differences on fundamental issues and future choices," it said.
The foreign ministry said Tunisia had the "right" to host the gathering because it currently held the rotating chairmanship of the 22-member Arab League.
In Sanaa, meanwhile, an official in Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's office said he and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had agreed the summit would be held in Cairo on April 16.
But an Arab League spokesman in Tunis, Hisham Yussef, said the situation was still in a state of flux and could not confirm the report.
"We have not been formally informed of a date," he said, adding that "hundreds of calls" were being made between foreign ministers and the league's secretary general Amr Mussa "on the steps to be taken in the next few days."
Mussa, head of the Cairo-based league, welcomed Egypt's offer to take over and host the summit -- the first formal gathering of Arab heads of state since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein last April.
The Tunis cancellation statement late Saturday cited "differences" over proposals Tunisia had presented, which "it considers substantial and of great importance as to the process of development, modernization and reform in our Arab countries."
In Cairo, sources close to Mubarak's office said several Arab leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and Jordan's King Abdullah II, had approved "in principle" that the summit could be held in Egypt's capital.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was also in agreement, along with the Yemeni leader, the sources said.
Arab foreign ministers who were in Tunis to prepare for the summit said they were stunned when the Tunisian government told them it was indefinitely postponing the event because of differences over political reform.
By late Sunday, many of the ministers had already left on flights from the airport outside Tunis, a press photographer said.
The stakes for the summit had been especially high as Washington was pushing for reform as part of its war on terror, while angry Arab peoples demanded their authoritarian governments do more to defend the Palestinians against Israel and to end the US-led occupation of Iraq.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS