Zebari attends Arab summit in Sirte

BAGHDAD /Iraqi News Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari is attending the Arab summit, currently in session in the Libyan city of Sirte on Saturda. “All the draft resolutions pertaining to reconciliation have been already adopted unanimously during the foreign ministers’ meeting on Thursday without any differences or reservations,” Zebari said in an interview to the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Zebari had rejoined the Arab summit in Libya after Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League (AL), phoned Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who earlier asked Zebari and his accompanying delegation to withdraw from the Arab summit as soon as the foreign ministers’ meeting was wrapped up in protest over remarks by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi. “Moussa phoned al-Maliki Thursday in a bid to ease the situation after the Iraqi premier asked Foreign Minister Zebari to withdraw from the Libya Arab summit in protest over Libyan Leader Muhammar Gaddafi’s remarks,” a source close to Maliki said. 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) 1