CAIRO: Arab states will rejoin the Mediterranean Union which has been frozen since the Gaza war in December-January, an Arab League official said Wednesday, despite reservations about sitting down with Israel.
The whole Arab group will participate in the next meetings. We will not be the ones to block the process, Mohammed Al-Nasseri, who heads the Euro-Arab cooperation department at the Arab League, told AFP.
He said Arab members, which include the Palestinians, would attend the July 7 meeting in Brussels to formally announce the 43-member union s relaunch.
The Arab members will first attend a Euro-Mediterranean ministerial meeting in Paris on Thursday on sustainable development, Nasseri said.
Launched at a Paris summit in July, the Union groups EU member states with countries in North Africa, the Balkans, Arab world as well as Israel in a bid to foster cooperation in one of the world s most volatile regions.
But the project has been the victim of Israel s onslaught on Gaza that ended on Jan. 18 as Arab countries refused to sit next to Israel. -AFP
