TRIPOLI - Libya has dropped its plan to withdraw from the Arab League, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said here Sunday, May 25, at the end of a meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Kadhafi. "Libya has renounced its withdrawal from the League and this decision was obtained by my personally insisting on this with Mr. Kadhafi, who agrees," Mubarak told reporters.
| Muammar just can't seem to make up his mind, if any... |
Libya had reiterated as late as early April its decision to withdraw from the 22-member Arab League in protest over the group's inability to take "a firm and strong position" toward the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Kadhafi has also several times in the past threatened to quit the Cairo-based League over its impotence, notably over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In March 2003, he also added that Libya "is above all an African country ... the African Union (AU) is sufficient enough."
| "Yeah. We're Africans, dammit!" |
The country's withdrawal was frozen after heavy lobbying by Mubarak and Arab League chief Amr Moussa. Under League rules, a member wishing to quit must also lodge an official demand, which Tripoli had not done. The withdrawal would have then become effective one year later.
| Muammar didn't bother to fill out the paperwork. It figures. |
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