Sudan and Syria: key issues at Arab League meeting

The problems in the Middle East are multiplying by the minute, with political tensions between Israel and Iran, economic solvency problems in Lebanon, and the war in Sudan the main issues that are keeping the region's leaders awake at night.

Against this backdrop, senior diplomats told AFP that two exceptional meetings will be held in Cairo, reports Al-Ain. With the aim of achieving stability and harmony among the countries involved, the Arab League will put the return of Syria and the search for an urgent end to the bloody war in Sudan on the table.

The dialogue will take place between Foreign Ministers in Cairo on Sunday. The meeting will consist of two sessions. In the first, the Syrian issue will be discussed, where Arab diplomats will discuss possible solutions to the Syrian crisis - greatly aggravated after February's earthquakes that shook the northwest of the country - in order to find a seat for them to participate in the decisions to meet the goals that the organisation sets itself every year.

The announcement of the extraordinary monitoring session of the Arab League is no coincidence. The fact that it comes just three days after the five-day summit between Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Syria indicates the seriousness and urgency of resolving the schisms that remain between many of the nations of the Arab world, and also the importance of these difficulties to all.

The five-day summit, which was a follow-up to the Jeddah summit and paved the way for discussions on Syria's rejoining the Arab family, ended with a declaration that served as a roadmap and opened a new Arab path for dealing with the Syrian crisis. The fact that Damascus attended this five-day summit was an achievement in itself, indicating that it agreed with all the decisions taken there and shed a favourable light on the next Arab path to end the protracted Syrian crisis.

In the second session, the leaders will address the war in Sudan, the effects of which are being felt across North Africa and the Middle East. The Arab League will discuss Sudan at its next meeting in light of the situation there, which has worsened despite unfulfilled ceasefires and fighting that has lasted 20 days since it began in the middle of last month.

Since the fighting began on 15 April, Sudan's capital has been in a state of chaos with at least 550 people killed and 4,926 wounded, according to official health ministry figures, which are believed to be significantly underestimated. More than 100,000 people fled the fighting - more than 800,000 are expected to do so in the coming weeks - to neighbouring nations, raising fears of a "humanitarian catastrophe" whose effects could spread throughout the area.