Egypt, Saudi Arabia To Skip Arab League Summit

AMMAN, Jordan — President Mubarak of Egypt today became the second leader to decline to attend the March 29–30 summit of Arab League heads of state in Syria after Lebanon said it was boycotting the meeting.

The Egyptian legal and assembly affairs minister, Moufid Shehab, will represent the country's delegation to the meeting in Damascus, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Hossam Zaki, said in an interview yesterday. Lebanon's government said Tuesday it is boycotting the summit to protest a political deadlock that has left it without a president since November. The dispute between it's pro-Syrian opposition and the pro-Western government has strained relations between Syria and some Arab states."If we hold the Arab summit while Lebanon is not represented by a president or under-represented, then certain Arab powers will not be happy," Egypt's state-run news agency cited Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit as saying this week.