Kuwait lent its support and participation to the Arab League Summit in Algiers on Monday. Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmed Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Djaber Al-Sabah made the announcement during a joint press conference with his Algerian counterpart Ramtane Lamamra in Kuwait.
The Arab Summit in Algiers was to be that of a new start for inter-Arab relations when the Arab world is more than ever undermined by divisions and armed conflicts.
If it was to be held initially next March without any date being officially advanced by Algeria, this summit will probably take place next autumn.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune will set a date and submit it for discussion at the next meeting of Arab foreign ministers scheduled for next March.
This mess around an appointment that is after all regular since the Arab world has known dozens of them, illustrates the tensions that run through the states of the region and their flagship organization, the Arab League. Many even wonder if there is still something left of this entity, considered the oldest international organization.
Although Algeria has denied that there is a postponement of the summit since no date had initially been officially set, the fact remains that this episode does not hide deep dissensions on the agenda of the meeting and positions vis-à-vis several current issues.
Algeria wanted to make this summit that of the revival of joint Arab action with the return to the Arab peace plan of 2002. It also expressed its wish to initiate a process of inter-Arab reconciliation by reintegrating Syria into of the Arab League. Has she set the bar very high given the current state of dissension between the members of this organization?
If the Gulf monarchies have been able to overcome their crisis with Qatar, the other issues are more complex.
The Arab world has experienced two major events in a decade that have greatly disrupted it: the Arab Spring of 2011 and the wave of normalization with Israel that began in 2020.
The first plunged at least three countries into civil war and several others into chronic instability. The conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Libya have led to the direct or indirect intervention of certain States (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in particular), with the equally direct involvement or interference of foreign powers (Russia, Turkey, and Iran in Syria, Iran in Yemen and Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in Libya).
Algeria insisted on preserving its neutrality vis-à-vis these three issues, supporting legality in Syria and refusing the presence of foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya.
Regarding Yemen, she has regularly condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi and Emirati territories, but without formally supporting the action of the international collection led by Saudi Arabia.
It is clear that these conflicts are still ongoing with no serious prospect of settlement. The positions of each other also have not changed. The latest responses from the Secretary-General of the Arab League suggest that there is still a long way to go to achieve a reconciliation of views.
On the reintegration of Syria, for example, Ahmed Abou Al Ghait indicated that it was not mentioned during the meeting of heads of Arab diplomacy which has just been held in Kuwait, and that it required extensive prior consultations.
A before and after Abraham Accords
The dissensions within the Arab world were aggravated by the 2020 Abraham Accords which saw four states unilaterally take the initiative to normalize their relations with Israel (Morocco, USA, Bahrain, and Sudan).
With Egypt and Jordan, six Arab countries now maintain official relations with Israel and others should follow, according to the American administration which supervised the agreements.
While the Arab ministers were holding their palavers in Kuwait, the Israeli president was making a historic visit to Abu Dhabi. The Palestinian question is relegated to the rank of priorities of the Arab countries and it is difficult in the current state of things to expect any effect from a possible unearthing of the 2002 peace plan.
This is even nonsense since the plan provides for the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in exchange for the recognition of Israel. A recognition that many Arab countries have already granted without consideration for the Palestinian cause.
These last months have also seen the accentuation of differences on the question of Western Sahara between Algeria and the Gulf monarchies and Egypt, traditional supporters of Morocco.
Last October, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the UN made Algeria react with unprecedented remarks on the question. During President Tebboune’s visit to Egypt last week, the Egyptian ambassador in Rabat hastened to clear up ambiguities by reiterating his country’s support for the “Moroccanness of the Sahara”.
With Morocco, it is downright the rupture of relations since last August and the tensions between the two countries constitute an additional pitfall in the face of the full success of an Arab summit, which is also being held in Algiers, even if the question of the Western Sahara will not be on the agenda.
Algeria does, however, have support and loyal allies in the Arab world, like Kuwait, whose head of diplomacy has just declared that his country will be ” the first to go to the Algiers Summit and the last to leave him”.
There is nothing surprising in this statement, relations between the two countries have always been good, but the Arab world has changed profoundly. Before, Algeria could count on the support of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Hafed Al Assad’s Syria, South Yemen, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, which is no longer the case now.
The Arab League, the only regional organization not to have reformed its functioning, is one dominated by the Gulf monarchies which no longer care, as before, about Arab issues.
