Ambassador Jassem Al-Mubaraki, the head of the Arab World Department at the Foreign Ministry, said participants in today’s meeting, preparatory for the fourth Arab-African Summit, tentatively approved a plan for "Arab-African strategic partnership."
He indicated that the conferees, during today’s meeting, worked out some draft plans that would be referred to the Arab League Secretariat General for any possible amendments, before submission to another meeting at this level, due on August 7, to be followed with another one on September 17.
Elaborating, Ambassador Al-Mubaraki said a final text of the aspired strategy would be referred to the African-Arab summit, scheduled in the Libyan city of Sirte next October.
Today’s meeting also dealt with the agenda of the senior-level meeting due tomorrow, he said.
The preparatory meeting for the fourth Arab-African Summit was held today with chairmanship by the Arab League, the African Union and Libya, which is hosting the top-level meeting.
For his part Ambassador Ahmad Bin Hilli, the Deputy Secretary General of the Arab League, said the preparatory meeting formed four committees, one for coordination between the league General Secretariat, the African Union Commission and the host country and another comprising four Arab and African nations, in addition to the African commission, the Arab League General Secretariat and the presidency state.
A third commission is charged with cross-examining documents dealing with the strategy for the Arab-African cooperation, a fourth one will draft the Sirte Declaration to be issued after the summit, and another is specialized in the draft resolutions to be debated by the Arab and African leaders.
Bin Hilli affirmed that the summit "constitutes a new forum for the Arab-African cooperation for sake of establishing real partnership in the economic, investment and political sectors.
States that took part in today’s junior level meeting were Kuwait, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Burkina Fasso and Ghana.
