Arab leaders opened a summit today in Jordan to discuss Iraq's thorny ties with Kuwait, support for the Palestinians and policy on the new government of hawkish Israeli Prime Miniser Ariel Sharon. The summit is the first ordinary gathering of the 22-member Arab League since 1990 and has been preceded by bitter wrangling over bids to forge a common position on Iraq, which has divided Arab ranks this past decade.
Arab foreign ministers toiled for the past three days over a resolution acceptable to Iraq and Kuwait, amid Iraqi demands for unilaterl Arab action to lift UN economic sanctions imposed in retaliation for the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Arab leaders are also expected to reaffirm a series of commitments adopted at an emergency summit held in October in Cairo to provide political and financial assistance to the Palestinian uprising against Israel.
They are meeting just 20 days after Sharon's inauguration and his repeated refusal to resume peace talks with the Palestinians from the point where they left off. Violence in the Palestinian territories and in Israel flared anew hours before the start of the summit with a bomb blast in Jerusalem that injured three people and with the killing of a 10-month-old Israeli baby girl yesterday.
The Palestinians have called for a day of rage to mark the start of the summit and the six-month anniversary of their uprising against Israeli rule that has claimed more than 440 lives since September, most of them Arab. Bureau Report