Arab leaders mend fences after Gaza

Hosni Mubarak: Time to mend fences with other Arab leaders. (AFP)

In the aftermath of Israel's Gaza offensive, Saudi and Egyptian leaders met their Syrian and Qatari counterparts in Kuwait on Monday to heal a rift exposed by the war, the Qatari prime minister said.

"It is a reconciliation between the four leaders," Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr-al-Thani told the Qatar-based satellite television channel Al-Jazeera.

Sheikh Hamad was referring to a meeting at which he and the three other leaders -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- also agreed to pledge aid to Gaza.

"The leaders are motivated by sincere intentions for a frank reconciliation. I think we turned a new page, for the good of the Arab" world, he said without elaborating.

The efforts to heal the rift shown up by Israel's 22-day war on the Gaza Strip were launched by Kuwait with the help of other Arab nations in the Gulf, a Kuwaiti source said.

They came after Saudi's King Abdullah called in a speech at Monday's summit for an end to Arab differences.

The split was highlighted after Qatar hosted a regional summit on Friday from which the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia stayed away.

The apparent reconciliation also came after Assad and Mubarak expressed contradictory stands at the opening session of the two-day summit.

Assad called on the summit to brand Israel a terrorist state for its assault on Gaza and urged Arab countries to "declare an unequivocal support for the Palestinian resistance."

Mubarak, however, warned regional powers were trying to exploit Arab differences for the purpose of domination and reiterated that a peaceful settlement remained the only option.

Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah opened the summit with a call for collective Arab measures setting out "practical steps to stabilise the ceasefire" in the Gaza Strip.

Sharp disagreements have hampered the Arab response to Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, with some nations calling for strong action while others prefer a more moderate approach.

The summit held in Doha on Friday called for the scrapping of Saudi Arabia's peace initiative, which calls for full normalisation of ties with Israel in exchange for its full withdrawal from Arab land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and an equitable solution of the Palestinian refugee problem.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called for a reconciliation within Palestinian ranks through a national unity government that would organise simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections.

The Saudi monarch announced the donation of one billion dollars for the reconstruction of Gaza, while Kuwait pledged 34 million dollars to cover urgent needs of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees.

The summit is expected to approve a two-billion-dollar fund for the rebuilding of Gaza, which was devastated by the Israeli offensive. But Sheikh Sabah said the reconstruction should be led through an international effort.

The war ended on Sunday with unilateral ceasefire declarations by Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since it ousted forces loyal to Abbas in June 2007.

Initially intended to focus solely on the regional economy and to be non-political, the gathering has been turned into a show of solidarity with the 1.5 million Palestinian residents of Gaza.

On the economic front, the Arab leaders are expected to announce the launch of an Arab customs union in 2010, besides approving plans for an Arab power grid and railway projects.

The summit will also tackle poverty and unemployment in Arab states and the global financial crisis which, according to Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah, has cost investors in the region 2.5 trillion dollars.

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