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Public rifts at Arab summit likely to satisfy Iran and Syria

26 March 2014 23:09 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Arab leaders at odds over supporting Islamists in upheavals across the Middle East have proved in no mood to reconcile at a summit this week, an outcome likely to satisfy Syria and Iran in their rivalry with regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Heads of state assembled in Kuwait publicly acknowledged they needed to end quarrels that are exacerbating an already catastrophic war in Syria as well as turmoil in Egypt and Iraq.

Behind the scenes tempers appeared too frayed for any possibility of joint Arab action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, or a common line on Tehran as it seeks detente with some Gulf neighbours and a thaw with the United States.

Saudi commentator Jamal Khashoggi told Reuters that Arab nations had never been as divided. He compared the use by some states of satellite TV stations to broadcast conflicting views to the Arab world with the past, when leaders such as of Egypt and Syria used radio propaganda to win regional influence.

"We're back to 'my radio is more powerful than your radio'. War across the airwaves. This country slanders the other. It's very upsetting," said Khashoggi.

States differed not only over the Syrian civil war but also the entire Arab Spring. Some saw the 2011 revolts against autocratic rule as negative for Arabs while others thought they marked "the true course of history".

"Bashar al-Assad and Iran are benefiting from this division between the Gulf countries," said Ebtisam al-Qitbi, a professor of political science at the Emirates University in the United Arab Emirates. She criticised a lack of consensus on supporting Assad's political opponents. "There are no real steps to solve the Syrian crisis. The opposition felt they were alone at this summit," he said.

Inter-Arab disputes that stem largely from Arab Spring have weakened leading Sunni Muslim states while Shi'ite rival Iran tries to improve its relations without the outside world. Tehran's Arab ally Syria, embroiled in a sectarian war that has killed 140,000 people and displaced millions, also benefits from the lack of unity.

"Differences in approach to some of the thorniest issues in the reordering of the post-Arab Spring landscape are simply too great to paper over, at least for the moment," said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at the Baker Institute in the United States