Gaddafi storms out of Arab League

March 30

BBC -

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has stormed out of the Arab League summit in Qatar having denounced the Saudi king for his ties with the West.

He disrupted the opening session by criticising King Abdullah, calling him a British product and an American ally. Col Gaddafi has angered Arab leaders in the past with sharp remarks at summits.

Meanwhile, leaders have been urged to reject an international arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.

Arrest first "those who have committed massacres and atrocities in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon", Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said.


Tina March 30, 2009 - 2:39am

albawaba.com - Qatar's Emir on Monday hosted a reconciliatory summit between Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi and Saudi King Abdullah following a Libyan tirade which overshadowed the first day of the Arab summit, a Libyan official said. "The misunderstanding between Saudi Arabia and Libya has been ended during this summit," Libyan senior official Ahmad Kadaf al-Dam was quoted as saying by AFP.

Earlier, the Libyan leader walked out of the opening session of the 21st summit of the Arab League in Doha Monday, after the Qatari host Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani refused to allow him to make comments towards the Saudi king. Shortly after Gaddafi stormed out the room, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also left the venue, trying to change the Libyan's decision.

According to press reports, Gaddafi interrupted Sheikh Hamad's opening speech in order to tell king Abdullah to forget past disputes. The relations between the two countries has deteriorated since 2004 when Saudi Arabian and U.S. authorities declared an alleged plot by Gadhafi to assassinate the then Crown Prince Abdullah. Libya said the allegations were false.

"It has been six years since you have been avoiding a confrontation with me," Gaddafi stated. "You are always lying and you're facing the grave and you were made by Britain and protected by the United States," Gaddafi told Abdullah in front of 15 other leaders attending the annual gathering.

I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader

nymole March 30, 2009 - 9:26pm

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.