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Iraqi Council Gets Arab-League Seat

Posted on: Monday, 8 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

Torn for weeks over whether to recognize Iraq's U.S.-appointed authority, the Arab League on Tuesday granted the fledgling Governing Council the Iraqi seat on the 22-member pan-Arab body.

The decision is the league's first to officially recognize the council - appointed July 13 after U.S. forces deposed Saddam Hussein's regime - as an authority able to represent Iraq on the regional stage.

Following nearly six hours of closed-door talks, Arab League foreign ministers issued a communique saying the Governing Council had been granted Iraq's seat until a legitimate Iraqi government is formed and a new constitution drawn up.

"This decision was agreed upon unanimously," the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters following the meeting.

The Arab League, which opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, had been reluctant to welcome the Governing Council into its fold, fearing any recognition of it would be seen as a sign of support for the American invasion of an Arab state.

But Tuesday's landmark decision paves the way for Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Kurdish leader appointed foreign minister when the Council's first Cabinet was named Sept. 1, to sit alongside other Arab envoys when a two-day foreign ministerial conference begins later in the day.

The Iraqi seat on the Arab League has been vacant since the war that toppled Saddam's regime.

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