Arab League gears up for 29th summit in Dammam

CAIRO – 8 April 2018: A delegation of the General Secretariat of the Arab League will head to Riyadh on Monday to participate in the preparatory meetings of the 29th Arab Summit, scheduled to kick off Sunday in Dammam.

Mahmoud Afifi, spokesperson of the Secretary-General of the AL, said that the delegation will include the general-secretary assistants of the Arab League, permanent delegates of the member states of the pan-Arab body and a media delegation.

The preparatory meetings will start on Monday and will run till Thursday, he noted. The next summit will witness wide participation from Arab leaders, kings and princes, he added.

Iran’s growing and destabilizing influence, Qatar’s intransigence and Arab action on the Israeli-Palestinian issue are expected to dominate discussions at the 29th Arab League summit, analysts said.

The summit had been scheduled for late March but was postponed so as not to interfere with Egypt’s presidential elections

Preparations for Arab summit will conclude on Thursday with meetings of the Economic and Social Council at the ministerial level.

It will be the first Arab League summit since the Arab strife with Qatar 10 months ago and the first also since the American announcement to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the matter which was denounced and rejected by all Arab and Muslim countries as well as most of European states.

In June 2017, four Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar for its alleged support to terrorist entities and organizations across the Arab world.