ARAB LEAGUE AGAINST PERMANENT OBSERVER STATUS FOR

UNCLAS CAIRO 002680 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE AF/E FOR GAREY E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV EG SO SUBJECT: ARAB LEAGUE AGAINST PERMANENT OBSERVER STATUS FOR CANADA AND YEMEN IN SOMALIA CONTACT GROUP REF: SECSTATE 111993 Sensitive but unclassified, please protect accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) Poloff discussed reftel demarche with Samir Hosni, head of the Arab League Office of African Affairs, on August ¶30. Drawing from reftel, poloff argued that including Canada and Yemen as Permanent Observers to the International Contact Group on Somalia (ICG) would increase the ICG's ability to develop a coordinated, international policy on Somalia and better engage with the parties to the conflict. Hosni was surprised that poloff raised the issue, saying he thought that "the matter was closed" (in other words, the issue would not be raised again),in accordance with the British position at the last ICG meeting against including new Permanent Observers. Hosni argued that Egypt, South Africa, and the OIC are also playing important roles in resolving the Somali conflict, and that they must also be granted Permanent Observer status in order for the League to support granting that status to Canada and Yemen. However, he said, the League would prefer not to re-open discussion of adding new Permanent Observers at all, and continue the practice of the host country inviting observers to ICG meetings as the host sees fit. ¶2. (SBU) Hosni also gave poloff a preview of a draft resolution on Somalia, to be discussed at the upcoming September 4 Arab League Ministerial in Cairo. The resolution, he said, would reaffirm League support for the Somali National Reconciliation Conference (NRC),call on member states to further fund the NRC, and call for the NRC to be "all inclusive." Asked whether the League supports including the disbanded Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) as a specific group in the reconciliation process, Hosni replied only that the League is calling on all parties to engage in the political process "without preconditions." RICCIARDONE