Libyan leader Moamar Kadhafi has confirmed the participation of his country in the upcoming Arab League summit in Beirut, despite threatening to quit the 22-member pan-Arab organization, its chief said.
On Sunday, Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa told reporters that Libya would participate in the summit in Lebanon scheduled for March 27-28 after returning from an urgent visit to the eastern Libyan city of Syrte to urge Kadhafi to back down on his threat.
A day earlier, Kadhafi called on Libya's General People's Congress (parliament), to consider pulling the country out of the Arab League for its alleged failure to fully support the Palestinians in their uprising against Israel.
According to AFP, Mussa said the results of his talks with Kadhafi regarding Libya's ties with the Arab League were "precise" and "clear," but did not elaborate on who would represent Libya at the summit. Additionally, Libya will take part in the meeting of Arab foreign ministers set for March 9-10 at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo, Mussa added.
Kadhafi threats came amid his severe criticism of a proposal by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah ben Abdul Aziz that Arab states recognize Israel in return for its withdrawal of all Arab land it occupied during the 1967 war. The Libyan leader instead laid down his own tougher conditions for normalizing Arab relations with the Jewish state.
Kadhafi "laid out his view on how the summit would treat the issue" of Prince Abdullah's proposal," Mussa said, adding that he would convey the Libyan leader's "impressions" to Saudi Arabia during a visit on Monday.
Arab League sources later told AFP that Mussa's visit had helped convince Kadhafi that Libya's parliament should postpone any decision to quit from the League. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
