Riyadh (TDI): A planned meeting of Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia in response to US President Donald Trump’s plan to take control of Gaza has been postponed by a day and expanded to include five more countries, Arab diplomats said on Monday.
“The mini Arab summit in Riyadh has been postponed from Thursday to Friday, February 21,” AFP reported citing a Saudi and Arab sources.
Three Arab countries had been expected to attend the summit, but the expanded meeting will include the leaders of the 6 Gulf Cooperation Council nations along with Egypt and Jordan to discuss Arab alternatives to Trump’s plans in the Gaza Strip.
The member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
An influential Gulf country expressed its dissatisfaction at being excluded from the summit, which prompted the organisers to include all the Gulf nations, the report added.
Trump had proposed taking over the war-torn Gaza Strip and moving its more than 2 million residents to Jordan or Egypt — a plan experts say would violate international law.
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Arab nations have unanimously rejected the idea or any prospect of displacing Palestinians from their lands.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier on Thursday stated Washington was open to proposals from Arab nations concerning the Palestinian territory, where a fragile ceasefire came into effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of war.
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Rubio said he hoped to be able to discuss these ideas during a visit that took him to Israel on Sunday, Saudi Arabia on Monday, and then to the UAE.
Last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah II met Trump at the White House and “reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Gaza people.”
