Tripoli Threatens to Withdraw From Arab League
Posted to the web April 4, 2003
Libya reiterated yesterday its decision to withdraw from the 22-member Arab League in protest over the group's inability to take "a firm and strong position" toward the US-led invasion of Iraq. Libya's league ambassador Abdel Minem al-Taher al-Houni, in a statement received by AFP, said he had made the request during talks Thursday with Arab League chief Amr Mussa. Libya "demands the implementation of its demand to withdraw from the league, to protest and object against its (the league's) inability to remedy the deterioration of the current situation and the serious dangers threatening the Arab nation, which is facing a flagrant aggression," Houni said.
He added the demand was based on the "absence of a firm and strong Arab position to confront the aggression against Iraq," as well as the "violation by certain member states of the league charter." Certain Arab states, which were not named, "did not respect the resolutions taken by Arab summits and meetings, calling on them to refrain from offering facilities for an attack on Iraq," he said. Maverick Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has several times in the past threatened to quit the Cairo-based league over its impotence, notably relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The last was on March 3, two days after Kadhafi clashed with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz live on television at an Arab summit meeting after saying Riyadh was ready to "strike an alliance with the devil", meaning the United States, to shield itself from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Arab states were deeply divided prior to the outbreak of war in Iraq on March 20, with Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar hosting the coalition troop build up while more radical states such as Algeria, Libya and Syria were insisting no assistance should be given to a US-led invasion.
Libya announced on October 24 last year it wanted to quit the Arab League, but Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Mussa talked Kadhafi into freezing the move. Under league rules, a member wishing to withdraw must give lodge an official demand, which Tripoli has not done yet. The withdrawal becomes effective one year later. The Libyan statement comes as Arab diplomats in Cairo told AFP earlier this week that talks were underway between Arab states to set the basis for a new regional grouping, and remarks by Mussa that in the face of the Iraq war the league "can no longer go on in its current shape."
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