BAGHDAD : Flurry of Arab Summitry
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Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah is scheduled to visit Baghdad and Cairo this week, continuing a flurry of high-level Middle East diplomacy aimed at clearing the way for an emergency summit and the strongest show of Arab unity in decades.
The main obstacles: a long-standing rift between Syria and Iraq and the seven-year-old feud between Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Syrian President Hafez Assad, who has supported PLO rebels bent on ousting Arafat.
Syria has refused to attend a summit in Baghdad and proposed a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Tunis to decide on an alternative site. Arafat wants a summit to discuss the massive emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel.
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