Stefano Chiarini, November 15, 2000

The Arab Summit

Saudi Arabia has moved to a harder position, Qatar toward diplomatic activism and this led to an important result - the revival of the dialogue between Iraq and the U.N. The Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al Sahaf, coming from a meeting with Kofi Annan, together with the Iraqi vice-president Izzat Ibrahim, was radiant yesterday. Meeting with the press, he said, "We have reached an aggrement on re-starting the dialogue without conditions." Therefore the acceptance of the UN inspections is not a prerequisite to start the dialogue. The news was confirmed by Kofi Annan, who says, "in a frank and useful meeting", ..."we discussed the means and manner to break the impasse." Here at Dolia there is talk of an imminent trip of Kofi Annan to Baghdad. And in addition,the words the "consequences of the Iraqi aggression on Kuwait" have been dropped from the final communique.

It is a total turnaround, which cannot have pleased Kuwait and the USA. Anyway, Kuwait's crisis and even Clinton's is one they could do very little about. Izzat Ibrahim has left in a triumphant mood for Baghdad, when, at the same time, in Qatar, there was a parallel with the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov.

After a few hours, Yasser Arafat and Iranian President Khatomi left, each in his own plane. Next rendezvous in 3 years in Malasia at Kuala Lampur if a new war does not devastate the whole region. And nobody, remembering the '67 war, has any intention of falling into Barak's trap.