Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques discusses region's issues with Sudanese president

Crown Prince Sultan receives phone call from King of Bahrain

Sultan of Oman, President Mubarak take up in Muscat summit efforts for Arab reconciliation, means to revive peace process

Arab League chief visits Syria, Iraq within preparations for Arab summit

Kuwaiti parliament dissolved, call for snap elections in 2 months

Bahrain monarch meets Hamas politburo chief, stresses support for Palestinians

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received a telephone call from President Omer Hasan Al-Bashir of The Sudan.

During the conversation, they discussed bilateral relations between the two sisterly countries and reviewed the situations at the Arab and International arenas.

Meanwhile, President Hosni Mubarak started an official visit to Oman, as part of a Gulf tour that will take him to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Developments in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, preparations for the coming Arab Summit and the proposals on resuscitating the Arab League will figure high on the agenda of President Mubarak's talks in Oman and the UAE.

Well-informed sources said that the proposals on reforming the Arab League will rank high on the agenda of talks between President Mubarak and Sultan Qaboos of Oman, in addition to the economic relations and means to increase trade exchange between the two countries.

Egyptian Ambassador to Oman Hani Riad said that the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and Oman, which totals $ 35 million, doesn't reflect the economic potentials of the two countries.

He added that the Egyptian and Omani leaderships are keen on continuous coordination between each other, noting that President Mubarak's visit will yield best returns for the Arab world.

President Mubarak is due to leave Oman on Tuesday for the UAE to hold talks with UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahayan.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Hossam Zaki, the official spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry, said that the Egyptian position towards meeting and conferences pertaining to arms smuggling into Gaza would not be change.

Zaki was replying to a question about the international conference hosted by London recently to stop arms smuggling into Gaza, to which the Egyptian administration was not invited.

"Egypt is not concerned with these meetings and has nothing to do with them whatsoever. Egypt will not be a party to any understandings between Israel on one hand and the United States or any European country on the other," Zaki said in statements.

He pointed out that Egypt is only concerned with securing its borders and protecting its security. "I have affirmed that prior to the convening of the Copenhagen conference," he said, noting that Egypt "has nothing to do with any efforts that are not pertaining to Egyptian lands and territorial waters".

The British foreign office had held a conference in London, which was attended by the representatives of seven European countries – Denmark, Italy, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway – in addition to Canada and the United States.

The meeting was considered to be one to follow up the Copenhagen conference, held last month with the participation of these countries plus Spain.

On the other hand, the United States, in outlining its 2009 budget, announced it is reducing foreign aid to Jordan and Egypt, a U.S. news outlet reported.

The annual aid to Egypt will be cut to $1.5 billion this year, down from $1.7 billion in 2008, America in Arabic reported. However, the report said cutbacks in foreign aid to Cairo would not be subtracted from the money allocated for defense, which amounts to $1.3 billion.

A budget proposal said $20 million would be spent on programs to promote democracy, human rights and government plans, and $35 million would be spent on education.

Aid to Jordan will also be reduced from $361 million to $264 million in 2009, the report said, which will include cuts in defense aid.

The news reflects a tighter supervision of foreign aid provided by the U.S. administration of Barack Obama to foreign countries in light of the economic crisis.

On a similar note, the United States is imposing limitations on the use of the military aid it provides to Israel, Israel Radio reported earlier this week.

Non-essential items will no longer qualify for the use of about $3 billion in annual military aid, the report said. Military aid to Israel was increased at the end of the George W. Bush administration and this decision is apparently being respected by Obama's administration.

Israel is required to spend the vast majority of its aid inside the United States in order to prevent a negative currency flow.

Egypt's state-owned al-Gomhuriya newspaper quoted Egyptian minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga as saying that Cairo will not accept any conditions being placed on U.S. aid.

Wednesday, U.S. Senate voted to cut $200 million in economic assistance to Egypt. The U.S. military aid package to Egypt for the current year remained unchanged, at $1.3 billion.

Abul-Naga said she hoped that U.S. economic assistance would focus on building economic ties between the two countries.

Under an agreement signed between Egypt and the United States in 1998, U.S. economic assistance to the African country would gradually diminish with each year.

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman held talks on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a US official said.

"She met him," the State Department official told AFP on the condition of anonymity without elaborating on the substance of the meeting.

Suleiman, who has not spoken to the media, met Tuesday with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell as well as with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, officials said.

An Egyptian official who declined to be named said Suleiman was in Washington to seek a softer stance on the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, so that it can participate in an internationally-recognized Palestinian unity government.

Hamas and the Western-backed Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have been bitterly divided since Hamas, after winning a majority in a 2006 parliament election, seized Gaza in a week of deadly fighting in June 2007, limiting Abbas's authority to the West Bank.

During her March 4 visit to Israel, Clinton said the administration of President Barack Obama would not work with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, unless the Islamist movement recognizes Israel and renounces violence.

"If there is to be a unity government that includes Hamas, then we would expect that Hamas would comply with the principles as set forth by the Quartet," she said.

The Middle East Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, has set conditions on dealing with Hamas that require the movement to recognize Israel, renounce violence against the Jewish state and comply with past Palestinian-Israeli agreements.

Hamas says those conditions are unacceptable. Senior delegations from the Islamist movement Hamas, Fatah and other groups began work in Cairo on March 10 to resolve their differences.

But negotiators said the talks continue to stall on the future government's program.

In another development, when Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa visited US-controlled Iraq for the first time in 2005, most of the talk was about 'not giving up on Iraq as an Arab country.'

At that time, many Sunni Arab countries, particularly those allied with the United States, feared a disintegrating Iraq - with its majority Shiite population - would fall under the shadow of an interventionist, revolutionary Shiite Iran, and that the Arab world would be powerless to prevent it.

Four years on, with Moussa set to leave Iraq on Wednesday from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya after a two-day visit, the talk is now decisively about “increasing the Arab role in Iraq.”

“There is a big difference between Iraq then and Iraq now, and I can certainly feel the difference,” Moussa said following a series of talks with Iraqi officials that started with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and included Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari.

The “big difference” he felt was the vastly improved security situation in the country compared to the sectarian chaos evident in 2005 in the wake of the US-led invasion.

On Wednesday, Moussa said, with a genuine satisfaction, that Iraq "is stepping away from the ethnic and tribal divisions" that had all but wrecked the country a few years ago.

“Today, Iraq is moving towards reconciliation,” he continued. “We support and encourage this because it is only through full and genuine national reconciliation that Iraq can... regain its crucial role in the Arab world.”

Behind Moussa’s words was the knowledge that Iraq is now much closer to Iran, the all-but-declared enemy of several Arab states, than ever before.

As a result, concern over the growing influence of Iran in Iraq has ignited Arab determination to reach out to Baghdad, despite the many security concerns and even traumas that are bound to prohibit the delegation of Arab diplomats to the Iraqi capital.

“We cannot allow Iran to take control of Iraq,” a senior Egyptian diplomat told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on condition of anonymity.

Many of the parties in al-Maliki’s coalition have overt ties to Iran, a sore point with many Sunni politicians and the Americans.

The association is “open enough that Iranian intelligence acts openly and freely across all of Iraq, even in the hardcore Sunni towns,” charged an Iraqi diplomat, speaking to dpa on condition of anonymity.

Some Iraqi officials - mostly on the Sunni side of the Iraqi political equation - fault Arab countries for not doing more to check Iran’s rise in Iraq.

The argument runs that Arab states chose to turn their back on Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion rather than be seen to deal with their neighbours’ “occupiers,” whereas Iran didn’t waste the opportunity.

For those of that opinion, the recent efforts of Arab states to re-engage with Iraq (Egypt, for example, is soon to re-open its embassy in Baghdad) are too little, too late.

“The Iranian influence in Iraq is unlikely to recede any time soon,” said an Iraqi journalist who asked for his name to be withheld. “It might be decades before it starts to recede, and it would take even longer for Arab presence to strong enough to equal Iran’s in ’the new Iraq’,” he added.

Arab capitals seem to be counting on the interest demonstrated by the Iraqi prime minister to communicate with former senior officials and cadres of the Baath Party that ruled Iraq during the era of Saddam Hussein, to help them rebuild Arab-Iraq ties.

Most of these Baathist figures now live in other Arab capitals, which have recently received envoys from al-Maliki to discuss the voluntary return of some of these Baathists to formulate a new political equation that includes all political factions.

In Baghdad this week, Moussa called this trend “positive indeed,” and promised to support it as part of the wider Arab solidarity with the cause of a comprehensive Iraqi reconciliation.

As Moussa leaves Iraq, his task will be to bring to the Arab League summit in Doha at the end of March a list of suggestions about how to actually consolidate Arab ties to Iraq, and how to dispel the atmosphere of mutual mistrust between the Arab states and Iran.

The suggestion by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari that Iraq host the next Arab League Summit - as it is entitled to do by the system of Arabic alphabetical rotation - may be a good start.

Furthermore, Syrian President Bashar Assad told an Italian newspaper that he is ready to act as a mediator between the West and Iran, and would like to meet U.S. President Barack Obama.

Rome daily La Repubblica this week quoted Assad as saying that Syrian and U.S. interests are "80 percent" in agreement, and that the first steps of the Obama administration in Mideast policy are encouraging.

Addressing growing tensions with Tehran over its nuclear program, Assad said he is "ready to mediate with Iran" but added that Western governments must come up with a concrete proposal.

"For now I have only received an invitation to play a role," Assad was quoted as saying. "We need a plan, rules and specific mechanisms to bring to Tehran."

Assad did not elaborate on who had asked him to act as a mediator, and Syrian government officials could not immediately be reached on Thursday for comment about the article.

The Syrian leader said he would like to meet Obama and praised him for shutting down the Guantanamo Bay military prison and pledging to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

"It would be a very positive signal," the Rome paper quoted him as saying. "But I'm not after a souvenir photo. I hope I can see him to talk."

Assad, who succeeded his father and longtime dictator Hafez Assad, heads an authoritarian regime in which the media treat him as a near divinity, tens of thousands of his pictures are on display and critics are jailed for speaking out.

During a visit to Syria in September, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stressed that Damascus could play a role in persuading Iran to cooperate.

Syria is Iran's closest Arab ally — the two countries have had close relations since 1980, when Syria sided with Persian Iran against Iraq in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

In the interview, Assad also said he is open to renewed negotiations with Israel but expressed concern over what he sees as Israeli society's turn toward the right-wing as Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to lead a new government.

"I'm not worried at the thought of Netanyahu, but by Israeli society's turning right, as reflected by Netanyahu's rise," he told the Rome newspaper. "That's the biggest obstacle to peace."

Turkey's government mediated indirect talks between Syria and Israel last year, but Damascus suspended the discussions after Israel launched its war in the Gaza Strip.

In Kuwait, the Emir dissolved Parliament Wednesday and called for new elections within two months, saying some lawmakers had abused democracy and become a threat to stability.

The Emir’s move is the latest chapter in the nation’s ongoing political crisis that pits a fractious parliament against the government at a time when the tiny oil-rich U.S. ally is struggling to deal with the effects of the global financial crisis.

“God knows the decision I made today was not easy for me,” said Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah in a televised speech, saying the people needed to choose a new parliament because national unity was in danger.

It is the second time in a year the emir has disbanded the confrontational legislature. Parliament has the power of budget oversight and the right to question and impeach ministers, but the final word rests with the head of state who can disband it.

The move was largely expected after the Cabinet resigned two days ago to prevent the prime minister from being questioned by lawmakers accusing him of misuse of funds and failing to run the country.

Many, including some parliamentarians, have said the accusations were actually unfair, overly vague and personal in nature. Parliament has a large contingent of conservative Islamist members that are often at odds with the Cabinet.

The political standoff has stymied economic development at a time when the country, which sits on 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves, is reeling from the global economic meltdown and falling oil prices.

The prime minister is a member of the ruling family, which does not believe it should be questioned by parliament.

The emir conceded the Cabinet was partly to blame in repeated political crises over recent years, but said the assembly was not helping matters by misusing its constitutional tools.

Al-Watan daily columnist Nabil al-Fadhel expressed doubt to The Associated Press that new elections would make any difference and expected the Kuwaitis to elect pretty much the same parliament as they had last year after it was dissolved.

“We Arabs don’t know what to do with democracy,” he said.

“The dissolution should have been without a call for fresh elections to give the country time to breathe and ... infuse some democratic culture into the people.”

His comments reflected a general dissatisfaction with the country’s brand of democracy that has no political parties, leaving the Cabinet without any support in parliament.

The ruling family dominates the key portfolios of interior, foreign affairs and defense.

Kuwait’s parliament previously was dissolved five times over its 47-year history.

In Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa affirmed his country's continued support for Palestinians in their just struggle to establish an independent state.

He was speaking at a meeting with Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal, acting Palestinian legislative council speaker Dr Ahmed Bahar and the accompanying delegation, currently visiting the kingdom.

The Bahraini monarch and Meshaal also reviewed political developments in the region. The King called on Palestinians to overcome their internal disputes and achieve reconciliation to face challenges.

His Majesty said Bahrain backed all efforts aimed at alleviating the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and pledged his support for Gaza's reconstruction.