The first meeting of the summit took place on the afternoon of March 27 and was attended by up to 10 Arab leaders. Conspicuous in their absence though, were the leaders of the Gulf Arab nations who sent representatives only, and some of those fairly low ranking. Before that first meeting, there were two other meetings – attended by various ministers of finance and economy from around the region and then a second one, attended by ministers of the interior.
As one might expect, diplomats from other nations – including the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey - also offered positive reviews of the Baghdad event. One of the most significant attendees was the Emir of Kuwait, Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, and afterwards Kuwaiti journalist, Sami al-Nisf, a former Minister of Communications and Information for Kuwait, who attended the conference as an observer, also agreed that the summit had been a success.
“The summit resulted in an Arab project that could be approved of by all the Arab leaders,” al-Nisf commented, referring to the Baghdad Declaration, which urges a peaceful end to the bloodshed in Syria through “serious national dialogue” among other things.
Al-Nisf also noted that the subjects covered at the summit were wider ranging than usual and included human rights, women’s rights, demographic changes in the Middle East and the dignity of the Arab people. Topics like this were not on previous summit agendas.
Also notable was the role that Iraq’s Kurds took during the summit. Three Iraqi-Kurds chaired Arab League meetings. Minister of Trade Khairallah Babiker chaired the meeting of economic and finance ministers from around the region, foreign minister Zebari chaired the foreign ministers’ meeting and the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, a leading Kurdish politician, headed the all important meetings of Arab leaders.
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