Egypt FM slams Iraq snub
* Group unanimous in admitting Iraq as member
DAMASCUS: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher hit out at the US-backed Governing Council in Iraq on Sunday for refusing to attend a regional summit in Syria to discuss the war-torn country’s growing instability.
“We haven’t heard from the Iraqi foreign minister except on television where he came up with some allegations that are wrong,” Maher told AFP here.
“I don’t think that when you receive an invitation you answer on television,” he said.
Iraq’s interim foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters late Saturday night that he would not accept a last-minute invitation to attend the Damascus talks.
Egypt’s top diplomat said the group decided “unanimously” on “adding Iraq, the new country, to the group” of Syrian, Egyptian, Turkish, Iranian, Jordanian, Saudi and Kuwaiti foreign ministers.
Asked by AFP whether the ministers were upset at Iraq’s snub, Maher said: “If you invite somebody to a club and he declines, do you keep inviting him? I don’t think this is appropriate.”
Maher said the delegates had offered to help Zebari surmount his logistical difficulties in arriving in Damascus in time for the meeting.
“We offered to help him. Kuwait proposed to send a plane to fetch him.”
The ministers began formal talks on Iraq’s growing instability here Sunday morning, after the two-day gathering opened Saturday night. —AFP |
