Arab leaders to form body to solve regional conflicts

Mar 30, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Arab leaders, who just wrapped up their two-day summit meeting in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, have approved the setting-up of a Peace and Security Council within the Arab League (AL), Xinhua learnt here Wednesday.

According to concerned sources, leaders and representatives of the 22-member pan-Arabic bloc signed the document on forming the AL council during the summit session on Tuesday, which was agreed by Arab foreign ministers during their March 25 meeting preparing for the summit.

However, the summit approval was not referred in the Khartoum declaration read by AL Secretary General Amr Moussa at the final session of the summit.

Media reports also confirmed that Arab leaders and chief delegates to the 18th Arab summit signed and unanimously approved the statute of the Arab Peace and Security Council during an in-camera session on Tuesday.

On March 25, Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem toldreporters following an evening closed-door session of the AL Ministerial Council meeting that the Arab foreign ministers agreedto set up an Arab peace and security council as a permanent subordinate institute of the Arab League (AL) to settle disputes, which would be submitted to the March 28-29 Arab summit for approval.

“The peace and security council will take the place of the present AL mechanism of resolving conflicts to be one of the AL’s main decision-making organs,” the Algerian top diplomat stressed.

He explained that the idea of creating such a council came to meet the demands of the present era, which imitates what had been done by other regional organizations such as the African Union.

(Xinhua/ST)