Arab League appoints El-Arabi

EGYPT’S FORMER foreign minister Nabil el-Arabi yesterday took over at the helm of the Arab League, maintaining a tradition that the top post should be filled by an Egyptian.

Faced with determined opposition from member governments and Egyptians, the ruling generals were compelled to drop former ruling party legislator Mustafa el-Fiqi and propose Mr Arabi minutes before Arab foreign ministers met on Sunday.

Qatar withdrew its candidate, former head of the Gulf Co-operation Council Abdel Rahman al-Attiyah, reconciling Cairo and Doha, long at odds over ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s policies. Mr Arabi is expected to press a unified independent Arab line.

Mr Arabi’s successor is likely to be Nabil Fahmi, who served as Egypt’s ambassador to Washington and is now dean of the school of public affairs at the American University in Cairo.

During the uprising, the two diplomats helped build a bridge between protest organisers and the military by forming a committee of prominent Egyptians, including Amr Moussa, the former league head whose term expired, leaving him free to campaign for the country’s presidency.

Since the fall of Mr Mubarak, Cairo has tried to make a clean break with his foreign policies. Upon being appointed foreign minister, Mr Arabi announced an end to Egypt’s co-operation with Israel’s blockade and siege of Gaza and cultivated good relations with Hamas, enabling Cairo to broker the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement that had eluded Mr Mubarak’s team.

Hamas and Fatah yesterday met in Cairo to begin discussions on forming a unity government.

Cairo also gave permission for Iranian war ships bound for Syria to transit the Suez Canal, the first passage of such vessels since the 1979 Iranian revolution, and it has vowed to restore diplomatic relations with Tehran.

Arab League policies are expected to reflect the post-uprising changes in Egypt, which is determined to recoup standing and influence in the region lost when Mr Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, concluded his 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Mr Moussa – who leads the field in the presidential race – complains that Egypt’s regional standing shrank during the Mubarak era because of the regime’s close ties to the US and Israel.

According to Mr Moussa: “The policies that we saw were neither supported by the people, nor understood by many . . . Any policy that goes against the public mood . . . is wrong, especially on sensitive matters such as Palestine . . .

“You can’t have the people opposing the siege of Gaza, and a policy [of supporting] the Gaza siege” imposed after Hamas won a majority of seats in the 2006 parliamentary election.

If elected, he pledges to promote the league’s 2002 peace initiative proposing full Arab normalisation of relations with Israel in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory occupied in 1967.