Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said in statements published in Riyadh Sunday that the League was heading towards turning the recent initiative launched by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz into a comprehensive Arab plan to be adopted by the upcoming Arab Summit.
Moussa said in statements to Al-Watan newspaper that he would start a visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday to review the initiative and the summit's agenda with the Saudi leadership.
He said there was no plan to postpone the Beirut Summit adding that Arab League permanent delegates are due to meet next Saturday and Sunday to work out a unified position over the Saudi initiative.
Furthermore, he said that he had information that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be able to attend the summit, due to be held at the end of this month in Beirut.
Meanwhile, Moussa left Cairo on an urgent mission to Tripoli after Libyan leader Moamar Kadhafi threatened to pull his country out of the 22-member pan-Arab organisation.
League spokesman Hisham Yussef said on Sunday that Moussa would spend several hours in the eastern city of Syrte to discuss "developments in the Arab world and initiatives for peace in the Middle East."
A highly-placed diplomatic source said Mussa "is going urgently to Libya to contain the situation following the threats by the Libyan leader to withdraw his country from the Arab League." "Mr Muss will try to convince the Libyan leader to abandon his idea," the source added. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
