ABU DHABI: The foreign ministers of eight Arab states meeting in the United Arab Emirates called on Tuesday for an end to non-Arab interference in regional affairs, their host said.
We are working to get beyond a difficult phase and create an Arab consensus on stopping unwelcome and unconstructive interference in our affairs by non-Arab parties, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nayahan said, in an apparent allusion to Iran.
Iran, a non-Arab Shia Muslim player in a region dominated by Sunni Arabs, supports the Islamist movement Hamas in its political struggle with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement.
That is seen as accentuating Arab divisions between a pro-Hamas camp, led by Syria and Qatar, and a pro-Fatah faction, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh Abdullah was speaking at the end of a closed-door meeting of ministers seeking to bridge the differences and generate more support for an Arab League proposal for peace with Israel.
Participants reaffirmed their support for the Palestinian Authority of Western-backed president Mahmoud Abbas and of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwahab Abdallah said their objective was to confer on the best ways to overcome our differences and to contribute to Palestinian reconciliation.
Those consultations will continue at a March 3 meeting of the Arab League council in Cairo, ahead of the 22-member organization’s annual summit in Doha later that month, he added.
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki said: We want to go to the Doha summit in a positive spirit in order for that meeting to be a success. That is why we are working to clean up our relations and create the conditions for that success.
An Arab rapprochement would facilitate Egyptian efforts toward an inter-Palestinian reconciliation, he added.
Attending the meeting, in addition to the UAE and Tunisia, were Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Representatives from Iraq and Kuwait had also been due to attend, but did not do so. -AFP
