No plans to postpone Baghdad’s Arab summit – official

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraq’s permanent representative at the Arab League Qais al-Azzawi said on Saturday that the AL secretariat and the Iraqi foreign ministry do not have plans to change the date for the convening of an Arab summit in Baghdad, scheduled for May 11. “My information in the AL secretariat and the Iraqi foreign ministry that no Arab country has so far announced any requests to delay the Arab summit in Baghdad,” Azzawi said in statements to IraqiNews.com news agency. “A number of participant delegations that visited Baghdad as well as reports in this respect hold that Iraq is fully prepared to host the pan-Arab organization summit as scheduled,” he added. He noted that the majority of Arab countries showed readiness to attend the meeting. “The Egyptian government said it would participate at the highest levels. The Tunisian prime minister would attend the summit too,” he said. Azzawi pointed out that Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, whose term in office would expire on May 15, will also attend the Baghdad summit. On the possible successor for Moussa, Azzawi said Qatar officially named its candidate, Abdulrahman al-Attiya, Egypt is offering several candidates like Mustafa al-Fiqi, Dr. Yahya al-Gamal and Hazem al-Biblawi but not settled on one yet, in addition to Algeria’s Abdulaziz Belkhadem. “The Egyptian and Algerian nominations are not official yet,” he said. He pointed out that the countries that witnessed political changes after popular uprisings will participate in the summit while others that about to see a change are not clear yet on their participation. “The political transformations taking place in Arab countries will have positive impact on the Baghdad summit,” Azzawi said.   AmR (TS)/SR 881