Syria sought support from its hard-line Arab partners Sunday for postponement of this week’s Arab League summit until bitter disputes among member states are resolved.
Syria, which spearheaded opposition to the conference amid divisions in the Arab world over the Persian Gulf war, announced Friday it will boycott the summit scheduled to be held in Amman starting Tuesday. Marxist South Yemen has also promised to boycott.
But two other hard-line states — Libya and Algeria — have declined to say whether they will attend and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which favors a boycott, has not yet made any formal announcement.
The three-day Arab summit is designed to create a unified political, economic and military strategy to confront Israel but Syria maintained that differences among Arab states would make the summit a ‘waste of time.’
Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam left Damascus late Sunday for Libya and Algeria with messages from Syrian President Hafez Assad detailing his objections to the summit.
At an airport news conference on arrival in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, Khaddam said: ‘Arab countries, as a result of Camp David agreements, are suffering disputes and for that reason we are requesting to delay the Arab summit,’ the state-run Damascus radio reported.
Khaddam also said ‘some Arab countries are ignoring the abnormal condition of relations among them.’
Khaddam was accompanied by Algerian Foreign minister Mohamed al-Sadiq Ben Yehya, who left him later for Algeria, the radio said.
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat arrived in Damascus from Kuwait and Iraq and immediately went into talks with Assad relating to the summit, sources said.
Arafat told reporters in Kuwait he was ‘surprised’ that the majority of the 21 members of the Arab League had rejected the Syrian appeal.
He said the final PLO decision on the conference would not be made until discussions by executive committee members in Damascus.
Syria, Libya, Algeria, South Yemen and the PLO are grouped in an Arab Steadfastness and Confrontation Front, which opposes any peace compromise with Israel unless the Jewish state withdraws from the entire West Bank, including Jerusalem.
Syria fears that a summit, if held now, would further divide the Arabs while moderate states argue that such high-level talks are the only chance for reaching solutions to Arab problems.
New splits in the Arab League stemmed from the 2-month-old Iraq-Iran war. The hardliners openly voiced support for Iran but the Arab moderates, such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, backed Iraq.
In the past few days, Syria also has accused Jordan of actively supporting members of the banned Moslem Brotherhood organization — an underground group that has vowed to topple the Assad regime.
