Ali Abo Rezeg
July 23, 2016•Update: July 25, 2016
By Hussein Mahmoud
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania
Arab leaders opened their annual summit in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott on Monday.
The two-day meeting is expected to discuss a flurry of Arab issues, including counter-terrorism, the Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking and turmoil in Syria and Libya, which fell into civil war following popular uprisings against their autocratic leaders in 2011.
Addressing the opening session, Mauritanian President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz called for the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, which collapsed in 2014.
"The region will remain unstable as long as there is no end for the Israeli occupation,” he said.
Mauritania hosts the two-day Arab summit for the first time since Nouakchott joined the Arab League more than 40 years ago.
Several Arab leaders were absent from the summit, including Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Iraqi President Fuad Masum.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, whose country was the chair of the 2015 Arab summit, denounced “foreign interference” in Arab affairs – in reference to Shia Iran.
Arab countries accuse Tehran of meddling in their affairs.
In recent months, tension escalated between the two sides since Saudi Arabia cut its diplomatic ties with Tehran earlier this year after two of its diplomatic missions in Iran were attacked by Iranian protesters following the execution by the Saudi authorities of a prominent Shia cleric.
Saudi Arabia and Arab allies accuse Tehran of arming Yemen’s Shia Houthi group, which overran capital Sanaa and other provinces in 2014.
The conflict in war-torn Syria has further worsened Arab-Iranian relations.
Iran is a major backer of the Bashar al-Assad regime, while Saudi Arabia supports the Syrian opposition.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abul-Gheit, for his part, called for rallying Arab efforts to combat terrorism.
“Our Arab nation is currently engaged in a fierce war on terrorism,” he told the summit.
On Saturday, Arab foreign ministers, meeting ahead of the summit, vowed to defeat terrorism.
