Maliki asks FM to withdraw from Arab summit in protest over Gaddafi’s remarks

BAGHDAD /Iraqi News Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday asked his Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and his accompanying delegation to withdraw from the Arab summit as soon as the foreign ministers’ meeting wrapped up in protest over remarks by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi. “Prime Minister Maliki asked Foreign Minister Zebari and the Iraqi delegation accompanying him at the Arab summit, currently hosted by Libya, to withdraw,” a source in Maliki’s office told Iraqi News. Maliki’s calls “were in response to a meeting Gaddafi had held with a group of Baathists and his pledge to them that he would carry their ideas and proposals to the summit as representatives of Iraq,” the source added “Gaddafi also told the group of Baathists that he would as well demand opening the issue of execution of former President Saddam Hussein coinciding with the setting up of a memorial for Saddam in Libya,” he said. Gaddafi’s remarks sent angry shockwaves in the official, political and popular circles in Iraq, the source noted. AmR (S) 2