October 25, 2002	Friday	Sha’aban 18,1423

TRIPOLI, Oct 24: Libya told the Arab League on Thursday it intends to pull out of the 22-member organization, an official at the African Unity ministry said.

“Libya officially informed the Arab League of its intention to withdraw from that organization,” the official said.

The announcement prompted Arab League chief Amr Mussa to say he would make an “urgent” visit to Libya to “solve this crisis”.

Mussa, currently visiting Portugal, told journalists at league headquarters in Cairo by telephone that he would go straight to Libya via Egypt this evening.

For his part, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said league members had the right to withdraw membership, but only after a one-year delay. During that period, the member must fulfill its normal obligations to the organization.

A senior league official said Tripoli had grown impatient with no concrete action by the organization on the two-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict and US threats to strike Iraq.

It is not the first time Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi has threatened to pull out of the pan-Arab grouping. In March, he called on his country’s parliament to examine Libya’s possible pullout over the view that the league had failed the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.

That prompted an urgent visit to Libya by Maher to calm the waters.

Libya also considered quitting in 1998 because of the “defeatist” attitude of Arab states towards the sanctions imposed on Tripoli over the Lockerbie airliner bombing.

It was at this time that the Libyan leader decided to focus on building relations with non-Arab African countries, but chose to stay after a visit by Maher’s predecessor, Esmat Abdel Meguid.

The Libyan leader has also on occasions harshly criticized the league.

“Stop begging. Ever since 1957 the Arabs have been negotiating for (the return of) 42 percent of Palestine, while the Africans have not let go of an inch of their territory,” he said in July, speaking of Libya’s support for African liberation movements.

campaign against Islam: Arab culture ministers firmly condemned on Thursday post-September 11 Western media campaigns that “deform” Islam and the Arab civilisation.

“We must oppose all the campaigns in the Western media that undermine and deform Arab culture and the Islamic faith,” said a statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting here.

Participants said the campaigns sprouted after the September 11 terror attacks against the United States, in which several Arabs and Muslims have been implicated.

Stressing that the Arab civilization had made huge contributions to humanity, the ministers exhorted “thinkers across the world to face up to the challenges of this slanderous campaign against Arab culture and Islam”.

The ministers also called on their governments to exploit the latest communications technology to fight back against such harmful campaigns.

But they failed to endorse the creation of a “multilingual, Arab cultural satellite channel,” which had figured high on their agenda.

Nineteen members of the 22-strong Arab League attended the Amman conference. Libya, which announced on Thursday its intention to pull out of the pan-Arab organisation, stayed away.

ANTI_TERRORISM MOVES: Arab justice ministers meeting in Beirut on Thursday studies plans for a united anti-terrorism front.

The ministers, who are meeting in Lebanon for their 18th conference, called on Arabs to “close ranks to face an eventual US attack against Iraq”.

The chair of the current session, Lebanese Justice Minister Samir Jisr, stressed the need for a united legal framework to deal with issues of common interest and to fill legal loopholes.

Jisr also said it was necessary to help the Palestinians set up a legal institute and establish the “rule of law” in their war-ravaged territories.

The 13 Arab ministers will be meeting behind closed doors until Friday and are set to discuss consolidating their positions on terrorism, organized crime, and the issue of human cloning. —AFP /dpa