Reuters
by Aziz El Yaakoubi
Morocco has decided not host the 2016 Arab League meeting, saying on Friday it wanted to avoid giving a false impression of unity in the Arab world.
The annual meeting, which would have been the group’s 27th, was initially set for on March 29 in the Moroccan tourist city of Marrakesh but had already been postponed to April 7 at Saudi Arabia’s request.
“Amid the lack of important decisions and concrete initiatives to submit to the heads of states, this summit will be just another occasion to approve ordinary resolutions and to pronounce speeches that give a false impression of unity,” a statement from the Moroccan foreign ministry said.
“Arab leaders cannot confine themselves, once more, to simply analyzing the bitter situation of divergences and divisions without giving decisive responses,” it added.
Saudi Arabia said on Friday it suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army in what an official called a response to Beirut’s failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.
The region is riven by the rivalry between Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia and the leading Shi’ite power Iran. The two are backing different sides in Syria’s civil war and different factions in neighboring Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia was enraged when Iranians, protesting against the kingdom’s execution of a Shi’ite Muslim cleric, raided its missions last month – and many countries in the region came out in support of Riyadh.
(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
