Foreign Minister Bajammal in the Arab League Meeting in Beirut: Yemen Stresses Importance of Having Regular Arab Summits [Archives:2000/11/Front Page]

Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abdulqadir Bajammal emphasized the importance of holding regular Arab Summit meetings to discuss issues of common concern to the Arab states during the Arab League Foreign Minister’s Conference held last Saturday in Beirut. “This initiative was not but a product of all the proposed measures and recommendations of the previous summits.” he said.
He urged his colleagues to adopt a certain technique to regulate the Arab League meetings and discuss the emergency situations immediately and in detail in order to avoid any obstacles in the way of the Arab solidarity to address such emergency situations. He also confirmed that all these meetings should be held openly and frankly with transparency being the rule rather than the exception.
Bajammal added “We have to announce to all that that our fraternal Lebanese people are not alone in their holy struggle. On the other hand he made it clear that words are not enough to Israel back out of Lebanon. What is needed are serious and practical Arab reactions against such aggressions and barbarity. Among what he also said was that Yemen will not give up its support for a comprehensive and fair peace settlement in the region. Yemen will not engage in any efforts to drive Israel back from the Arab holy lands and will not yield to the current political, economic, cultural, and social frustrations which the Arabs are being subjected to.” The meeting was held in Beirut to symbolize what is made to appear as solid Arab support for the Lebanese people in the wake of continued Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure facilities and since Israel has declared that the Memo of Understanding of April 1996 has, for all practical purposes ended. The one day meeting culminated in a 10 point communique which among other things suggested that even those Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel ought to review the relations, which implied that such relations can be broken as easily as they were made. In addition the Arab Foreign Ministers confirmed the need to make do on the previous commitments of the Arab League members to provide the necessary financial and logistical support to Lebanon to rebuild the destruction and the damages caused by the Israeli attacks. The meeting itself suggested that this is the first time that the Arab League came out with decisive declarations of support and was the strongest collective action since perhaps the 1973 War against Israel and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the mid 1980s.
The forum was concluding with the the long awaited Beirut Declaration, which clearly expressed support to Lebanon against Israeli oppression.
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