KHARTOUM, Sudan, March 28 (UPI) -- The annual Arab summit opened in Khartoum Tuesday amid calls to respect the Palestinians' choice of Hamas to lead them and hold a national congress on Iraq.
Algerian President Abdel Aziz Boutefliqa, outgoing head of the summit, inaugurated the two-day parley by stressing that attempts to corner the Palestinians and sabotage the results of their democratic general elections were unjustified.
"There is no justification for punishing a whole people, but that will be a new violation to be added to previous violations of Palestinian rights," Boutefliqa said.
He was referring to Western threats to suspend financial aid to the poverty-stricken Palestinian Authority when Hamas takes power after a landslide electoral victory, dealing a humiliating defeat to moderate Fatah.
Boutefliqa also renewed what he called the "Arab request" to make the Middle East a region free from all weapons of mass destruction.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who takes over from Boutefliqa, also stressed Arab support for a Hamas-led government.
"We say no to denying the democratic choice of the Palestinian people, no to punishing the Palestinian people and no to concession and idleness over Israel's violation of all promises and commitments it made," al-Bashir told the summit's opening session.
He stressed that the Arab nation is aspiring for a just and comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East under which Palestinian territories will be liberated, refugees returned and the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital created.
The Sudanese president also expressed support for an initiative by Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa to hold a congress for national reconciliation in Iraq and rejected outside pressures exerted on Syria in relation with the international probe in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The summit was attended by 12 heads of state, including Jordan's King Abdullah, Syria's Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon's controversial President Emile Lahoud, who is considered by a large bracket of Lebanese society to be an illegitimate president.
The main absentees are Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Moroccan King Mohammed VI.
