Egyptian diplomatic source acquits coronavirus and reveals the real reasons for postponing the Arab Summit
Cairo – North-Press Agency
Muhammad Abu Zaid
On Sunday, an Egyptian diplomatic source has revealed the real reasons for postponing the Arab summit, denying that coronavirus was the reason. The summit, which according to the Charter of the Arab League is to be held at the end of March each year, was officially postponed either by Algeria, which is hosting the summit this year or by the Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit, due to mounting concerns regarding coronavirus, according to official statements.
However, an Egyptian diplomatic source has revealed in a statement to North-Press what he called the real reasons for the postponement, “exonerating the crisis of the new coronavirus” from causing the postponement in that way on the basis that “things are going normally in the Arab work, and days ago there was a meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers which was not postponed, in addition to the fact that Algeria the country hosting the summit this year, does not have the new coronavirus as an epidemic and has not shown cases of concern, which confirms that there are other reasons behind the postponement process.”
The summit is scheduled to take place before June, according to the statements of the Secretary-General of the Arab League following his meeting with the Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, during which he stressed that the Algerian president expressed Algeria's readiness to host the summit before June 30, if the international conditions associated with the coronavirus improve.
The source talked about two main reasons that prompted the Arab League to take coronavirus pretext for the postponement as an apparent reason that is being promoted in the media outlets and in front of the world, while the first real reason relates to Syria's seat at the Arab League, on the basis that Algeria is one of the countries that has a stable and clear stance regarding the return of the Syrian seat to the Arab League.
The source added: "Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon have a clear stance, they are calling for the need to return the seat of Syria at the Arab League to be occupied after years of freezing, and this was raised explicitly and very strongly last year 2019 at the Arab Economic Summit in Lebanon.”
The source revealed information that “the Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit, when he went to Algeria on his last visit at the beginning of this month and met with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, he reiterated his country's request to return the seat of Syria; because there is no longer anything to prevent this from happening in light of the recent developments and transformations after the Syrian forces were able to impose full control over the Syrian territories with the exception of Idlib and areas in the north, in addition to the external attacks against Syria from regional powers, especially Turkey, which require an Arab role to support Syria, and to the end of these matters and developments.”
The source added: "With Arab countries (specifically Gulf countries) opposing the return of Syria, the file remains a controversial file, so Aboul Gheit agreed with President Tebboune to postpone the summit for the month of June for further consultations, in order to work on obtaining a kind of consensus with the countries that oppose that approach.”
There is a legal point of the utmost importance, when the seat of Syria in the Arab League was suspended, the decision was not issued unanimously, and therefore when it comes back it is not required to return unanimously, otherwise, clinging to unanimity in that case was a kind of militancy against the Syrian government, according to the Egyptian diplomat.
The source singled out Saudi Arabia as the strongest opponent for the return of the Syrian seat, on the basis that Gulf countries were taking the same stance, but they have recently expressed flexible stances, including the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait.
The real reason, apart from the apparent reason for coronavirus, which prompted the postponement of the Arab summit and the setting of an open date that was not specified before June 30, is related to the differences in the Arab stances and opinions regarding the Libyan issue, as the Arab states in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) believe that the Libyan agreement, Skhirat Agreement is the basis upon which all solutions in Libya must be built with the participation of all parties.
Consequently, the decision to postpone which took coronavirus as an apparent reason for it, was made in order to give the Arab countries the opportunity to further agree on the main contentious files on the table, ahead of the summit that seems hot and loaded with flaming files.
The file of the upcoming Arab summit is still surrounded by a lot of ambiguity, whether in terms of the date of its convening or about the files on the table prior to the summit, the most important of which is the return of the Syrian seat into the Arab League.