US embassy cable - 04KUWAIT1010

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 001010 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/28/2014 
TAGS: PREL, XF, KU 
SUBJECT: MFA UNDERSECRETARY ON ARAB LEAGUE POSTPONEMENT 
 
REF: SECSTATE 67135 
 
Classified By: CDA FRANK URBANCIC REASON: 1.4 (B,D) 
 
1. (C) Summary.  Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Khaled 
Al-Jarallah told Charge on March 28 that although Tunisia has 
postponed the Arab League Summit due to lack of consensus on 
reform, the topic of reform is now on the League's agenda and 
the GCC will continue to push it.  End Summary. 
 
(C) Summit's Postponement 
------------------------- 
 
2. (C) Charge had requested the appointment with Al-Jarallah 
to deliver the Secretary's Oral Message (ref A). With 
Tunisia's postponement of the Arab League Summit, he inquired 
about the reason for delay and the prospect of reform among 
Arab League countries and within the League itself. 
Al-Jarallah said Tunisia had made the decision by itself to 
postpone the Summit after it became apparent that there was 
deep division among members regarding the reform agenda.  He 
said it would have been difficult for Tunisia to tell the 
leaders to come when there was no consensus among the foreign 
ministers.  Al-Jarallah said that several foreign ministers 
wanted the summit to go on as scheduled, but he affirmed that 
"Tunis made the right decision to postpone".  He admitted it 
was not easy to postpone a summit but said that the League 
now "needs time to recover from this situation."  He 
expressed his concern however that Tunisia had not set a new 
date for the postponed summit. 
 
(C) Reform on the Agenda 
------------------------ 
 
3. (C) Al-Jarallah stressed that political and social reform 
was a "hot issue" and that Kuwait and other members of the 
GCC would continue pushing it within the Arab League.  He 
said a draft reform paper was already circulating, describing 
the document as "perfect." According to Al-Jarallah, the 
paper addresses the issues of education, democracy, the role 
of women, and human rights.   He said the work now was to 
build upon this initial draft.  "Kuwait will do our best to 
achieve targets and progress on these issues," he said, 
adding that some countries are ready to accept and welcome 
these ideas.   He said the issue would now receive more 
attention among the Arab media and officials and that such 
discussion would be "good for the Arab world." Despite 
Charge's inquiry, Al-Jarallah avoided discussion of the 
positions of other Arab League members or identifying the 
authors of the draft. 
 
 
(C) Internal Arab League Reform 
------------------------------- 
 
4. (C)  Al-Jarallah also confirmed that there was 
disagreement among Arab League members regarding reforming 
the organization itself.  Speaking of Arab League Secretary 
General Amer Moussa, the Undersecretary said:  "Although he 
appears to be pushing (reform) for the Arab League, he is 
not.  He is trying only to do something for himself." 
Al-Jarallah said the GCC countries would offer other ideas 
for reforming the organization, but did not specify what 
those would be. 
 
URBANCIC