FEUDS AND RECONCILIATION BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DOHA 000233 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/31/2019 TAGS: PREL KPAL KWBG SU QA SUBJECT: FEUDS AND RECONCILIATION BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE ARAB LEAGUE SUMMIT REF: A. DOHA 225 ¶B. DOHA 222 Classified By: Ambassador Joseph E. LeBaron, for reasons 1.4 (b, d). -------------- (C) KEY POINTS -------------- -- Based on press reports, confirmed by Embassy sources, relations between King Abdullah II of Jordan and Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad are on the upswing. Al-Asad also reached out to Palestinian President Abbas in a "substantive meeting" on the margins of the Arab League Summit. -- Libya's Qaddafi has invited Saudi Arabia's King to visit Libya after Qatar's Amir worked to reconcile the two leaders. -- Yemeni President Saleh boycotted the Summit's closing ceremony to protest the exclusion of Yemen's proposal for Arab unity from the Summit agenda. -- An Egyptian Embassy source in Doha is not optimistic that reconciliation between his government and Qatar will take root any time soon. -------------- (C) COMMENTS -------------- -- Qatar's leadership appears to take pride in what was accomplished at the Summit. Leaving aside the Yemeni President's premature departure and Egypt's low-level participation, Embassy contacts widely agree that Arab leaders left Doha more unified than they came. -- Even though personal relations among the leaders appears to be moving in a positive direction, the lack of consensus at the Summit on policy toward Iran and Israel is evidence that policy disagreements are with us to stay. -- The biggest rift, from our vantage point, is Egypt's feud with Qatar. The spillover of that dispute has almost certainly damaged the Qatar initiative on Darfur, and the bilateral frosty relations show no sign of a thaw. End Key Points and Comments. ¶1. (C) Based on Al Jazeera reports and those of other regional media as monitored by the Open Source Center in Doha and its sister offices, reconciliation was a general theme of the Arab League Summit in Doha. Five days before the March 30-31 Summit convened, Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad called on Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman. The visit to Jordan was Asad's first in five years. The Syrian and Jordanian leaders met again in Doha on the margins of the Summit, proof according to a Qatari press source that relations between Damascus and Amman are on a more positive footing. 
¶2. (C) In addition to meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Al-Asad held separate meetings on the margins of the Summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, two prominent moderates. The Syrian President's two other side-bar meetings in Doha took place with Somali President Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad and Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, neither in the moderate camp. A Qatari press source told us, however, that the meetings with these African leaders were more symbolic than substantive but that the reverse is true for Al-Asad's meetings with the Palestinian and Saudi leaders. ¶3. (U) Elsewhere on the reconciliation front, the Saudi, Libyan and Qatari leaders held a meeting of reconciliation after Qaddafi interrupted Qatar's Amir during one session and accused King Abdullah of "evading confrontation for six years" and of running a kingdom "created by the United Kingdom and protected by the United States." Qatari press reports confirm that Qatar's Amir spearheaded a reconciliation meeting between the Saudi and Libyan leaders. ¶4. (C) There were conflicting reports as to why Saudi Arabia accepted reconciliation with Libya. Some reports in the press (and accounts given to the Embassy) maintain that the Saudi King never heard Qaddafi's remarks and, thus, was not offended by them. Other reports maintain that it was the Saudi King who reached out to Qaddafi. Regardless, there is agreement among Qatari press sources with whom we spoke that Qatar's Amir was instrumental in helping both leaders clear the air, and in the end Qaddafi invited King Abdullah to visit Libya. DOHA 00000233 002 OF 002 -------------- YEMEN UNHAPPY -------------- ¶5. (C) Not all was roses in matters of reconciliation. President Saleh of Yemen boycotted the closing session of the Summit because the Yemeni proposal for Arab unity was not discussed. A Yemeni opposition group's website reported that Qatar resented Saleh's statements at the Summit blaming Qatar's mediation between his government and Huthi rebels as further encouraging rebellion. A diplomatic source in Doha confirmed this account. -------------- EGYPT AND QATAR STILL DIVIDED -------------- ¶6. (C) In a statement to the press after the close of the Summit, Qatar's Prime Minister, Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, spoke of arguably the biggest conflict of all: Egypt's frosty relations with Qatar. The Qatari PM acknowledged the disagreements but said they would be resolved through "friendly dialogue." An Egyptian diplomat told us privately that reconciliation between Cairo and Doha will "take some time," as the Egyptian list of grievances "is long." -------------- IRAQ AND IRAN -------------- ¶7. (U) According to press reports, Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki expressed reservations during the Summit meetings over the final statement on Iraq, which "failed to mention the security improvement" in that country. Separately, the Yemeni Foreign Minister was heard to say that "the time is not right" for an Arab-Iranian dialogue. LeBaron