Egypt's President Mansour in Kuwait for Arab League summit
Ahram Online, Monday 24 Mar 2014
Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday will tackle regional issues and the conflicts in Syria and Palestine, despite recent rifts between member states over Qatar


Egypt's interim President Adly Mansour travelled to Kuwait on Monday ahead of the Arab League summit scheduled to take place in the Gulf state over the next two days.

Arab leaders at the summit will discuss issues related to the Syrian and Palestinian conflicts and other issues concerning the region, said the Arab League's secretary-general Nabil El-Araby, as quoted by Al-Ahram's Arabic news website.

Mansour's participation in the talks will focus on relations and cooperation with other Arab countries to overcome the region's current dangers, reported Al-Ahram.

A meeting between Arab League foreign ministers on Sunday agreed on draft resolutions for the summit, which has been overshadowed by divisions among member states after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates pulled their ambassadors from Qatar earlier this month.

However, members who attended Sunday's meeting reported that there had been no tensions.

The foreign ministers approved the basic charter of a Bahrain-based Arab human rights tribunal and recommended that the next summit be held in Egypt.

They also called on Arab states to provide LE700 million ($100 million) in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority every month and rejected recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Meanwhile, Egypt's foreign affairs minister Nabil Fahmy said that he does not expect any kind of reconciliation to take place between Egypt and Qatar, according to Reuters.

Qatari-Egyptian relations have deteriorated since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi, as the Qatari government had been a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, during the Islamist president's troubled one-year rule.

In February, Cairo's Courtfor Urgent Matters approved the interim government's designation of the Brotherhood as a terroristorganisation.

The move by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to pull their Qatari ambassadors was in response for Qatar's failure to "stick to the principles of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states," according to a statement released by the three countries.

The statement additionally cited Qatar's support for "antagonistic media," a reference to the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera satellite channel, which Egyptian authorities have accused of providing biased coverage in favour of the Brotherhood.

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