Gaddafi boycotts Arab summit

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi walked away from an Arab summit yesterday, damaging the unity of the Arab League to protest against its agenda and failure to take up his proposal for a single Israeli-Palestinian state. Gaddafi did not immediately pull his country out of the 22-member league, but said he hoped Libya's basic people's congresses, local councils which theoretically decide Libyan policy, would agree to withdrawal.

"Unfortunately Libya is forced to boycott the summit because it does not agree to the agenda of the Arab governments. Libya wants the agenda of the Arab peoples," Gaddafi told a rambling news conference after leaving the opening session.

Libya has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the league and Gaddafi was a reluctant participant in the Tunis meeting, the last to arrive yesterday morning after Arab leaders telephoned to press him to turn up.

Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki said he hoped the withdrawal would not affect the preparations, which followed an abortive attempt to hold a summit in Tunis in March.

Gaddafi left the conference hall as Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa, a controversial figure who has irritated conservative Gulf Arab leaders, defended the league from what he said were attempts to undermine it. "Some voices have risen, calling for the getting rid of the Arab League, or breaking it up," he said, also criticising Arab governments for failing to pay their dues.

Gaddafi's main concern appeared to be the Arab League's failure to adopt his "white paper" proposal for a single Israeli-Palestinian state, instead of the widely accepted alternative of Israeli and Palestinian states side by side. Thirteen heads of state and three prime ministers, as well as representatives from the six other Arab countries, took part in the opening session at a heavily guarded conference centre in the Tunisian capital.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who is trapped in the West Bank town of Ramallah by Israeli forces, spoke by video-link, denouncing recent Israeli actions in Gaza.

The Tunisian government unexpectedly called off the first attempt at a summit in March, arguing that some Arab governments were obstructing reforms which the world expected This time, Arab foreign ministers have tried to ensure a success by agreeing all the key documents in advance. But the two-day summit takes place at a time of deep pessimism in the Arab world about the ability of Arab leaders to help Palestinians under Israeli rule or end the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies.

Moussa reflected the mood in his speech, saying the world's problems had grown worse because of violence and the use of force, mismanagement of policy and "double standards".

Diplomats say the Arab leaders will not call for the immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq or add any substance to the Middle East proposal they made in 2002, when they offered peace and normal relations in return for Israeli withdrawals to the borders that existed before the 1967 war.

An Arab diplomat said the summit would criticise the "immoral and inhumane practices and crimes of the coalition forces" in Iraq and call for the trial of all those responsible, not just the US guards at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Arab diplomats say the summit will endorse democracy and human rights, but activists say that without a timetable or a plan of action their promises could turn out to be empty.