Arab foreign ministers open thorny files at Amman meeting

A ministerial meeting attended by the foreign ministers of six Arab countries took place in the Jordanian capital of Amman on January 31, 2019 to mark the beginning of implementing the Arab understandings regarding the many crises facing the Arab region. The meeting was aimed at addressing common challenges and enhancing cooperation to serve Arab interests.

Highlights of the meeting

The Dead Sea meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt, in addition to Jordan, to discuss regional relations and developments, as well as ways to face the Arab challenges.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II received the foreign ministers to discuss the situation in the region and the latest developments in Syria, Iraq and Palestine files. King Abdullah stressed the importance of joint coordination on various issues and crises facing the region in order to promote joint Arab action and serve the interests of the Arab states and their peoples.

Among the most prominent files:

1 – Syria's return to the Arab League. These discussions could perhaps open the possibility of Syria participating in the Arab summit to be held in Tunisia in March 2019.

Observers believe that the issue of restoring Syria's membership to the Arab League will be at the top of discussions, especially considering Jordan is one of the few countries to have maintained relations with Damascus despite the Arab League’s decision in 2011 to freeze Syria’s membership.

This issue is of great importance regarding Arab-Arab relations, as they seek to have the Assad regime disengage from Iran and reduce its dependence on Tehran, thus limiting Iranian influence in the region.

There is the possibility of presenting a large aid package for the war-torn country’s reconstruction in exchange for the Syrian regime accepting the gradual return of Syrian refugees in order to ease the pressure on countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, as well as making some political and constitutional reforms to restore stability in the country.

2 – Iranian threats in the Arab region and ways to confront the Iranian role in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

3 – Forming a joint Arab force (Arab NATO) and coordinating with the United States to address security and military threats threatening Arab national security. This comes after the Arab region has witnessed many regional and international interventions in issues of Arab national security, which has caused a trend towards forming a unified Arab force to face those interventions.

4 – Palestine. The Jordanian monarch stressed the need to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution and the Arab peace initiative leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the lines of June 4, 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

This comes in advance of the Warsaw meeting called by the United States to discuss issues facing the Arab region, including Israel. This increases the possibility of achieving a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement on the basis of Arab requirements and international legitimacy, as well as the inclusion of the Arab peace initiative with Tel Aviv to end the Arab-Israeli conflict that was previously approved at a 2002 summit in Beirut.

5 – The humanitarian situation in Yemen and how to support the Arab coalition forces to end the situation and return the legitimacy, as well as working to find a solution to Saudi Arabia and the UAE exiting from the war in Yemen and ratifying the Sweden agreements with the Yemeni government, which is in need of confronting Iran, because freezing the war in Yemen will give the opportunity for broader internal and regional understandings.

There is no doubt that the timing of the foreign ministers’ meeting is significant, especially in view of the approaching international summit in Warsaw on February 13-14, which will be attended by more than 70 countries at the invitation of the United States.

The US State Department announced that the agenda includes several important points, most of which concern the Arab region and the Middle East, especially Iran. It will also discuss a number of important issues in the Middle East, including the development of ballistic missiles, terrorism, humanitarian crises and e-security, as well as the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

In the same context, March 2019 will witness the Arab League summit, which will be hosted by Tunisia. There is thus a re-engineering of Arab relations, especially in light of the many thorny issues in Arab-Arab relations, such as the Gulf crisis and the relations of the Arab countries with Iran.

The meeting of the six Arab countries’ foreign ministers shows their determination to re-engineer Arab-Arab relations in order to meet the challenges facing the region, especially in light of the decline of Arab regional projects in the face of non-Arab regional powers such as Iran, Turkey and Israel.

Regarding the Palestinian issue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will participate in the Warsaw summit against Iran, which will also see the presence of the same ministers participating in the Dead Sea meeting. Therefore, King Abdullah announced at the end of the meetings on the need to find a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue, which will be strongly raised at the Warsaw summit by forming a strong Arab front to counter Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

In general, the ministerial meeting between the six countries in Amman represents a preliminary step to rearranging the Arab-Arab situation, especially ahead of the Warsaw and Arab League summits, which will see similar issues discussed.