An Arab ministerial meeting started Monday night in Tripoli to discuss means of reviving the Arab role in the Middle East, an official source said.
Tripoli said the meeting was convened to discuss proposals put forward by Libyan leader Moammer Kadhafi at the March 27-28 Arab summit in Amman to activate joint Arab action, reported AFP.
Among the participants were Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Sudan, while Syria, Algeria and the Palestinian Authority sent representatives.
At a meeting with college students in Benghazi earlier this week, Kadhafi set three conditions that Israel had to meet before the Mideast conflict could be solved.
Repeating what he reportedly said at the summit, Kadhafi invited Israel to join the Arab League.
He said that Israel must withdraw from the occupied Palestinian lands, allow Palestinian refugees to return to their lands and allow the destruction of its weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, Moussa will pay a two-day official visit to Beirut next week, his first to the country after recently assuming his new post, reported the Daily Star newspaper.
Sources told the paper that Moussa is due to hold talks with officials regarding developments in the situation in the Middle East, especially efforts underway to consolidate a Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire.
The visit, which will come on the heels of an Arab follow-up committee meeting in Amman on June 18, will serve as an opportunity to discuss preparations for an Arab ordinary summit to be held here next March, they said.
The committee will review financial support for the Palestinians and efforts to freeze Arab political contacts with Israel.
No reasons were given for the delay, but the Jordanian news agency, Petra, said Sunday that the meeting was postponed after consultations with the ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.
The follow-up committee was set up by the October summit of Arab leaders in Cairo to handle support pledged for the Palestinian uprising against Israel, which erupted last September 28 – Albawaba.com
