14 September 2012 By Tariq Alhomayed The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement
yesterday announcing that delegations from the quartet
of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran [and Egypt] have arrived
in Cairo to discuss the Syrian issue. This comes in
response to Egypt's proposal which was put forth at
the end of Ramadan, during the Islamic Solidarity
Summit in Mecca. Yet the truth is that there are a lot
of questions that must be answered by the relevant
people regarding this quartet. Firstly, there are questions relating to the Arab
ministerial committee, headed by Qatar, which is
responsible for monitoring developments in Syria. This
committee emanated from an Arab League decree and its
mission is to follow the Syrian issue regionally and
internationally. This is the entity from which the
bulk of Arab proposals and initiatives towards the
Syrian crisis have emerged, from the commissioning of
al-Dabi, former UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, to
Lakhdar Brahimi today. Will Egypt's proposed quartet
cancel out the Arab ministerial committee, or will it
serve to scupper its decisions, particularly in light
of the presence of the Iranians? What about the role
of the other member states in the Arab ministerial
committee? What is the use of Lakhdar Brahimi
travelling to Damascus whilst this other quartet is
also working on the Syrian issue? Secondly, how can the quartet of Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Turkey and Iran succeed while Nabil Elaraby,
the Secretary-General of the Arab League, stressed the
need to return to the Security Council once again in
the League's last meeting? Furthermore, how is this
quartet consistent with the statements of the US
Secretary of State after her meeting with her Russian
counterpart, whereby Clinton said that if the Russians
sought to disable the Security Council taking
effective decisions against al-Assad, then America,
along with its allies, will mobilize to support the
Syrian opposition? Will the work of the quartet be
undermined by this mobilization, through which we will
see yet another initiative, which means granting more
time to al-Assad? Thirdly, how can this quartet initiative succeed
given that al-Assad rejects it completely, believing
it to be a clear extension of the recent Egyptian
stance towards Syria, which was announced by the
Egyptian President - for the first time since the
outbreak of the Syrian revolution - at the Non-Aligned
Movement summit in Tehran, and later in his speech to
the Arab League in Cairo? Fourthly, how can we accept Iran and Turkey's call
to discuss the situation in Syria whilst the Arabs
often reiterate that they want to solve their problems
without allowing Iran specifically to interfere? How
can Iran today sit around the negotiation table and
discuss Syria, especially given that the Arabs
previously objected to Kofi Annan's proposal to
involve Iran in the resolution of the Syria issue? Not
long before that, the Arabs also objected to the
proposal put forward by former Secretary-General of
the Arab League Amr Musa, to hold a meeting of
rapprochement between the countries of the region and
Iran and Turkey. So how is Iran's involvement
acceptable now, especially as Tehran is not a country
neighboring Syria like Turkey is, and is not part of
the solution? Iran is a fundamental supporter of al-Assad,
so why legitimize its interference in Syria now? Who
stands to benefit from this? All the above questions require answers from the
relevant people, for fear that we will reach the point
where we say that the Arabs must unify their
initiatives and efforts towards Syria, after it has
long been said that the Syrian opposition must unify
their ranks! Will we receive any convincing answers. Comments 💬 التعليقات |