Arab League: Inviting Syria to Tunis Summit Won’t be Discussed at Beirut Meeting

Assistant Arab League Secretary-General Hossam Zaki said on Saturday there were no plans to discuss Syria's invitation to attend a summit in Tunisia next March, during an economic summit scheduled in Beirut between January 19-20.

In a statement he made to Sputnik news agency, Zaki said: “The Arab League has no plans to discuss Syria's invitation to the Tunis Summit during the economic summit in Lebanon, which Damascus has not been invited to.”

He assured that the summit will be held on time despite the calls of Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri to postpone it.

“The summit will be held on time,” he stressed.

A source in the Tunisian presidency told Sputnik that “Tunisian President Béji Kayed Sibsi was holding consultations during the economic summit in Lebanon on the invitation of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the Arab summit to be held in Tunis next March.”

Tensions have surged in Lebanon in recent weeks between parties who want Damascus to be invited to the summit and others who reject its participation.

Controversy has also arisen over the invitation of Libya in connection with the case of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, a revered Shiite cleric who disappeared in 1978 while on an official visit to the country.

In 2011, Syria was suspended from the Arab League over its failure to end the bloodshed in a move that aimed to increase the international pressure on President Bashar Assad.