CAIRO - The stakes over a US plan for Arab reform are so high that foreign ministers here Thursday deferred it for their heads of state to debate at a summit in Tunis later this month, a leading official said.
Foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab League ended days of intense discussions about the US initiative for political and economic change in the Middle East without reaching a consensus, Arab League chief Amr Mussa told reporters.
"Because of the seriousness of the issue touching on problems tied to national sovereignty and the whole region's future, the ministers decided to send it as it is, and documents related to it, to the heads of state," he said.
Arab monarchs, presidents and other leaders are scheduled to hold a summit in Tunis on March 29-30.
The ministers had hoped during their meetings in Cairo to draft a joint plan for reform, which would amount to a counter-proposal to Washington's "Greater Middle East Initiative".
Washington, which has sought to reassure Arabs that such a plan can only work if reform comes from within, hopes to launch its initiative during a summit of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations in June.
The US initiative aims to encourage democratic reform and economic opening in the Arab world and other Muslim countries in a bid to abate frustration and poverty on which international terrorism is thought to thrive.
Nearly all the Arab countries are ruled by authoritarian regimes. They have branded the US initiative as interference in their affairs and criticised its failure to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
However, Qatar on Wednesday criticised Arab states for rejecting the initiative before knowing its contents.
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