This is the first congregation of the annual Arab Summit since the coronavirus. The summit was intended to take a position on its annual March calendar, but was delayed due to disputes over its timing and the preference of its incoming president, Abdelmedjid Tebboune, to pursue some political projects that did not enjoy a quick Arab consensus.
According to an Arab League source, Algeria sought to bring back the Syrian regime to Arab League meetings. Syria suspended in 2011 in reaction to the brutal crackdown on calls for democracy before the overall situation in Syria escalated into a quasi-civil war.
Algeria also came forward to invite some countries in the region to participate as guests. No proposal gained sufficient consensus among the member states of the pan-Arab organization.
The source said that once Algeria maintained the political trend of the summit “within the consensual political range, things moved in the right direction. “
The fate of the summit was the subject of many hypotheses until the end of the summer, but Algeria acted pragmatically to save the situation,” he added.
According to Egyptian diplomatic sources, Cairo has been in favor of following consensual and pragmatic political lines given “the numerous foreign and regional blunders that require pragmatic technique and realistic expectations.
This is a time when it is transparent that Arab countries are pursuing other agendas; For things to the paintings and the cancellation of the summit, each of the member states had to restrict their expectations for the Arab summit,” one of them said.
Clearly, the summit comes at a time of heightened foreign tension due to the Russian war in Ukraine, with alarming long-term imaginable scenarios of that war, especially with its impact on global food security at the expense of many countries. , adding the Arab states.
Not all Arab capitals agree on their positions regarding this war. Over the past nine months, the positions have not come very close.
Egypt, the source said, is of the opinion that in foreign relations, each member state deserves its possible options according to its own political priorities, “just like us. “
Therefore, he said, Egypt argued that any language followed through the Algeria Summit must be within the framework of applicable UN General Assembly resolutions that called for saving civilians and seeking a political solution.
For Egypt, the source said, the purpose of the summit is to streamline inter-Arab relations on “the strict and very transparent basis of non-intervention in the internal affairs of member states. “A solution that the summit will adopt on an Egyptian basis The initiative will emphasize “this very important concept of respect for the sovereignty of nation states” through all member states of the Arab organization and its regional and foreign allies.
The Algerian Summit meets under the name Lam AlShaml (Close Ranks). In the Egyptian diplomatic book, in order for Arab countries to close ranks, they must first of all avoid meddling in each other’s internal affairs. According to an Egyptian source, it was the best and simplest recipe that helped fix relations between Egypt and Qatar after a long lapse of time that Cairo attributed to Doha’s unconstructive positions on Egypt’s internal political developments.
Once this was resolved, Egyptian diplomatic sources note, things moved temporarily to the point that President El-Sisi himself won a large Qatari trade delegation in Cairo earlier in the week.
Libya, the source said, is “the best example” when it comes to the concept of non-intervention.
“We will see an end to interference in Libya’s internal affairs,” he said. Egypt has taken a corporate public policy stance on the desire for the government of Abdel-Hamid Dabibah “to refrain from facilitating Turkey’s intervention in Libyan affairs, either through the agreements it has signed with Turkey or through the de facto presence of Turkish [figures] on Libyan soil. “
“It is true that our interests have a good reputation with respect to the ‘red lines’ that President [Abdel-Fattah] el-Sisi has drawn, but our interest in Libya is not only our direct interest in protecting the borders. to sell the security and stability of this direct neighbor whose instability is a direct cause of our concerns,” the same source said.
Two years ago, Egypt secured the total removal of all militants deemed hostile off Libya’s eastern borders to ensure that Egypt’s western borders are protected from imaginable infiltrations.
During the preparatory assembly of foreign ministers that took office on Sunday, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry remained in the convention hall alongside Nadjla Al-Mankoush, the Lithroughan foreign minister appointed through Dabibah, unlike previous assemblies that took place at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab Alliance. League the first week of September, for the normal autumn assembly of Arab foreign ministers, and later that month in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly when Shoukry refused to be in the convention hall with the representative of the “Dabibah government”. .
However, according to resources from the Arab League and Egypt, Shoukry’s position came after Dabibah himself agreed that Mohamed Al-Manefi, chairman of the Liviaan Presidential Council, would lead his country’s delegation to the summit. The agreement, the two appeals said, was reached through joint mediation through Tebboune and Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
Meanwhile, Egyptian diplomatic resources say Egypt hopes the summit will serve to regain foreign attention on the Palestinian cause that has been forgotten along with the many regional and foreign political issues.
“It is no secret that the very Arab attention to the Palestinian cause has been significantly reduced for many reasons, adding to the very apparent failure of the Palestinian leadership to separate differences despite the attempts at reconciliation that Egypt has turned to and that more recently, Algeria has tried its luck with diplomatic hands. ” the Egyptian source said.
He added that a primary solution on the Palestinian cause is not expected from the Arab Summit at this time. However, he added that it is very vital that the summit recalls the desire to pick up the pieces of a political negotiation procedure between Palestinians and Israelis.
What Egypt hopes to achieve is some sort of intermediate Palestinian-Israeli political talks to a point of political momentum that could help further de-escalation on the ground, especially in the Gaza Strip, right next to the eastern borders. with Egypt .
Meanwhile, Egyptian diplomatic resources say Egypt is closely following the “fragile” and “vulnerable” political scenario in Lebanon, especially after Lebanese President Emad Aoun’s term ends in the absence of the election of a new president. “God knows when the Lebanese will have their new president; things are unpredictable, but we must ensure that, while Lebanon waits to have a new president, it does not fall into general chaos, especially given the existing economic problems,” he said.
According to the Arab League source, it is very important for many Arab capitals, adding Egypt and the top capitals of the Arabian Gulf, that Iran does not try to take advantage of the current moment of political and economic vulnerability in Lebanon to further expand its influence over that. Cocheck out.
Indeed, he said, staying the course on Iran in Al-Mashrak in general is a key political goal for many Arab capitals.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian diplomatic source said water and food security are two key issues that Egypt needs to be resolved at the Arab Summit.
In the end, Egyptian resources said that Cairo does not wait for the Arab summit for the confrontation over GERD, but only hopes that it will remind Ethiopia that its unilateral positions on GERD control, adding 3 consecutive unilateral dam fills since 2020, cannot be accepted through Arab states.