The Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy yesterday ruled out the likelihood of achieving reconciliation in the Arab Summit to be held in Kuwait this week.
In a press conference, Fahmy said: “I do not expect coming away from the Kuwait summit with the parties convinced that things have been settled because the wounds are deep.”
He added; “Even if we reached a formula, and that is unlikely, we all need time to evaluate the translation of this formula into an actual commitment to positions and executive steps, reflecting a change in the policies.”
Relations between Qatar and Egypt have been strained because of Doha’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood which the Egyptian government class as a terrorist organisation.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha earlier this month in protest against, what they believe is, Qatar’s intervention in their internal affairs. Egypt said that its ambassador to Qatar, who was summoned to Cairo last month, will not return.
Fahmy confirmed that he did not meet his Qatari counterpart during the summit’s preparatory meetings.
He expressed his hope that the summit would witness “the beginning of real treatment” of the Arab issues “because the temporary reconciliation process will not work and the issues are far deeper than this”.