Damascus: Agencies: (30/3/2008): Arab leaders meeting for their 20th annual summit in the Syria capital will end their deliberations today.
Arab leaders have meanwhile accepted Qatar’s offer to host the next Arab summit meeting instead of Somalia where the situation has been unstable for over a decade now.
HH the Emir SH Hamad Ben Khalifa al-Thani is leading Qatar’s delegation to the summit meeting.
Opening the meeting yesterday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied his country was meddling in Lebanon.
He was responding to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who had accused Syria of preventing the election of a consensus president in Beirut.
Mr Assad said his country was willing to join "Arab or non-Arab efforts" to end Lebanon’s political crisis "on condition that they are based on Lebanese national consensus".
Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief, wants foreign ministers of the group to re-evaluate the Arab-Israeli peace talks.
Moussa warned that the Arab League could take "painful decision regarding the Arab position towards peace negotiations".
Moussa wanted Arabs to reconsider their options on Israel and the current negotiations if no progress is seen in the next few weeks.
The remarks come as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins yet another Mideast tour saying this time she expected Israel to take "meaningful" steps to ease Palestinians’ lives in the West Bank.
Despite four months of negotiations since the US hosted the Annapolis summit, there is still little sign of tangible progress.
Correspondents say resolutions prepared for the summit do not contain substantial new ideas on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the problems facing Iraq or Sudan.
It will repeat the Arab initiative of 2002, which offers Israel peace and normal relations with all Arab countries in return for withdrawal from all territory captured in the Middle East war of 1967.
Israeli governments have rejected or ignored the initiative, which would require dismantling settlements which house hundreds of thousands of Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Assad reflected Arab frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks. "Do we leave the peace process and initiatives hostage to the whims of successive Israeli governments, or do we look for alternatives to achieve a comprehensive and just peace that restores full rights?" he asked
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