The New Arab publishes a multi-part testimony based on excerpts given by Farouk al-Sharaa, Bashar al-Assad's foreign minister and then vice president, reflecting on various pivotal events that took place in Syria and the region during his tenure.
The book Memoirs of Farouk al-Sharaa ... : 2000–2015 is being published by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies. It covers a period of Bashar al-Assad's presidency (2005–2015) during which Farouk al-Sharaa continued to serve first as minister of foreign affairs, and later as vice president of the Republic, before being compelled to withdraw from public life in 2013, following a directive from Assad forbidding communication with him.
The New Arab's Arabic-language sister edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed is publishing excerpts from the book. Here is the third instalment, in which Sharaa addresses the failure of the Arab political reform project at the Arab Summit in Tunis (2004).
Since early in the year 2000, the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States had convened an annual Arab League Summit every March, hosted by member states in alphabetical order on rolling rota. In 2004, Tunisia was due to host, following summits in Beirut and Sharm el-Sheikh in 2002 and 2003 respectively (after Bahrain had declined to host).
A trilateral meeting was convened, which I attended alongside the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Prince Saud Al-Faisal and Ahmed Maher, in advance of the preparatory ministerial session. This had become a custom in recent years among these three pivotal states: Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Amr Moussa (the then-Secretary General of the Arab League – translator's note) later joined this meeting.
The dominant view emerging from this mini four-way meeting was that we should refrain from discussing the fraught situation in Iraq, given that Iraq's neighbours — Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, and Turkey — were already holding regular consultations on the issue.
As for the Palestinian struggle, which traditionally topped the agenda of every Arab Summit, we agreed that there was no point discussing it in earnest, since the Americans — who were overseeing the peace process — were wholly preoccupied with Iraq and continued to disregard the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed at the Beirut Summit in 2002.
Accordingly, the focus of the Tunis Summit was on a proposal for reform within the Arab world — which had been jointly advanced by the Arab League General Secretariat and Egypt, at the behest of the US.
The preparatory ministerial meeting for the Tunis summit took place on the morning of March 27, 2004, and was chaired by Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahia. Ahmed Maher introduced Egypt's working paper on "reform" and proposed its inclusion in the summit's official agenda, and that it be issued as a distinct communiqué, in accordance with President Hosni Mubarak's wishes.
At the time, Egyptian-Tunisian relations were strained in part due to Egyptian concerns over Tunisian ambitions in relation to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which Mubarak perceived as challenging Egypt's position of importance as the largest African nation.
There had also been a symbolic affront to Tunisia: President George W Bush had invited President Mubarak to attend the G8 Summit in Sea Island in June 2004, while no such honour was accorded to the Tunisian president — despite Tunisia holding the rotating presidency of the Arab League Summit at that time.
Egypt's working paper on reform only deepened the rift between the two countries.
Tunisian foreign minister Habib Ben Yahia was known for his pragmatism and diplomatic attitude in Arab gatherings, traits that enabled him to navigate their complexities with skill. As chair of the preparatory meeting, he proposed that the contents of Egypt's working paper should be deliberated by the ministers and amendments put forward.
Neither Egypt nor any of the other Arab states objected to Ben Yahia's proposal. All were aware that Ben Ali had left no meaningful space for opposition within Tunisia's political sphere. He was so uncompromising in this regard that he once threatened to sever diplomatic ties with Syria if it continued to host exiled Tunisian dissident Rached Ghannouchi, who regularly visited Damascus to participate in pan-Arab and Islamic conferences.
As for Prince Saud Al-Faisal, he did not personally object to the notion of reform - his perspective was still deeply impacted by the events of September 11, the shockwaves of which had reverberated across the globe and for which his country found itself under suspicion.
At the same time, he was acutely aware that the religious establishment — the cornerstone of governance in the Kingdom — was staunchly opposed to any form of reform. However, the reform initiative was being advanced by the Egyptian president, who maintained a strategic alliance with the US — which was actively pressuring its allies to implement reforms. This fact rendered the proposal less threatening from Riyadh's perspective and more palatable to Prince Saud, who, albeit reluctantly, agreed to discuss the Egyptian paper.
Syria, for its part, took an open stance. President Bashar al-Assad had publicly raised similar reformist ideas at an earlier stage, gaining the attention of the Arab League states. However, Syria was unwilling to accept reform as a mandate imposed by the US — especially given that Washington had not stopped threatening Syria since its 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In its aftermath, the US had passed the "Syria Accountability Act". Therefore, while Syria did not object to a reform programme per se, its approval would be contingent upon an Arab consensus that resisted alignment with American demands.
An indefinitely deferred summit
Egypt's working paper was distributed to all attending ministers during the preparatory session of the Arab Summit in Tunis and our deliberations commenced. We examined its contents, paragraph by paragraph. The hour went past midnight Tunis time, yet no consensus had emerged over the proposed amendments. However, there was a palpable will among the ministers to persist with the lengthy and animated discussions which stretched until two in the morning.
We had drawn close to finalising the document's provisions and amendments; only a handful of words and phrases remained bracketed for finalising during the summit's plenary session. Then, without warning, a sudden announcement was issued by the Tunisian presidency: the summit had been postponed indefinitely.
The timing was extraordinary — just hours before Arab heads of state started arriving, many of whom were preparing to board planes bound for Tunis.
The discussions came to an abrupt halt, and we felt a deep sense of frustration at having wasted so much time. Questions began circulating regarding the reasons for the abrupt cancellation.
The summit was postponed without a rescheduled date, and the Tunisian presidential statement gave no clarification nor justification. We were in the dark regarding President Ben Ali's undisclosed communications with fellow Arab leaders. The true impetus behind the cancellation remained a mystery, and the Tunisian foreign minister — who presided over the preparatory meetings — offered no explanation. Perhaps he too was unaware of what had happened behind the scenes.
Journalists, who had remained with us through the night until dawn, asked me the reason for the postponement. I limited myself to an expression of regret — nothing more, nothing less. I then called Bashar al-Assad, an early riser, and conveyed what could be appropriately said over the phone concerning the postponement and the suspension of travel preparations. The full details, I assured him, would follow upon my return to Damascus.
Here, it is necessary to touch on the earlier meetings and communications that preceded our arrival in Tunis for the summit's preparatory meeting — tedious though they may seem — for the insight they may provide into the reasons for the cancellation, via more understanding of the communications which were underway between Arab capitals. Indeed, from the start of the year, communications between Arab ministers had intensified. Several of them posed the same questions: What do we want from this summit? And what will its outcome be?
The first to reach out to me was Prince Saud Al-Faisal, inquiring about the agenda for the Tunis Summit and whether I had received any information relating to it. Three days after that call, Mubarak visited us. He insisted that the visit be extremely brief and asked that the meeting take place at Damascus Airport. His purpose was clear: to determine whether the summit would indeed convene as scheduled at the end of March 2004, according to the agreed-upon Arab timetable.
Amr Moussa also called to inquire about the latest developments in the region — specifically, what had transpired during President Mubarak's visit to Damascus. As Secretary-General of the Arab League, he was always keen to understand Egypt's position first.
A few days later, Bashar al-Assad visited Riyadh, and I accompanied him on that trip to consult with Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz regarding the agenda for the upcoming summit. Saudi Arabia's stance at the time was ambiguous and opaque: it supported the idea of reform, as it did not wish to provoke the US, yet it also feared a possible backlash from the religious establishment.
Immediately on our return from Saudi Arabia, on March 20, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, visited us along with his Foreign Minister, Hamad bin Jassim, seeking to understand Saudi Arabia's position. Shortly thereafter, Sheikh Mohammed bin Mubarak, the foreign minister of Bahrain, arrived in Damascus to inquire about the preparations for the summit and its prospects.
Then, on March 24, we received Yasser Arafat's envoy, the minister of culture Yahya Yakhlif, who came from Ramallah to speak about the Israeli airstrike the previous day that targeted the life of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin — the leader of Hamas — as he left the mosque after dawn prayers, and to convey Arafat's expectations for the summit.
New summit date set
Finally — and with an unusual sense of enthusiasm after a long period of silence — I received two consecutive phone calls in a single day from Habib Ben Yahia, informing us that Tunisia had agreed to a new date for the summit. He proposed May 22–23, 2004, to be held in Tunis, and requested that the two-month postponement be treated as though it had never happened.
During this period of silence, President Mubarak had, in his remarks following an invitation from President Bush to attend the G8 Summit, hinted that if President Ben Ali did not wish to host the rescheduled Arab Summit in Tunis, he (Mubarak) would call for it to be held either at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo or in Sharm El Sheikh — a location viewed as safer and more tranquil.
The Arabs and Political Reform
In early May, the foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia — myself among them — agreed to hold an informal, unannounced meeting in Cairo to assess the likely outcomes of the rescheduled Arab Summit, now that Tunisia had finally agreed to host it. Our discussions took place over a working lunch, hosted by Ahmed Maher on May 20, 2004.
Our shared concern was clear: the Arab world — its leaders and its people — was facing a profound crisis in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. If that weren't the case, the summit wouldn't have been so abruptly postponed.
During the lunch, Ahmed Maher attributed the Arab world's decline to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Saud Al-Faisal pointed to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and Bush's earlier refusal to meet an Arab delegation seeking to explain the Arab Peace Initiative. I took it further back still, to President Anwar Sadat's 1977 visit to Jerusalem. I said we were facing a deep historical impasse, whose roots lay in that ill-fated visit — a moment that showed utter disregard for Arab unity and the Palestinian struggle.
A long, uneasy silence followed. I glanced at Ahmed Maher, who clearly preferred not to speak. Saud Al-Faisal, however, seemed to take my words personally. He began to defend Saudi Arabia's record, emphasising its consistent support for Arab and Muslim causes, especially Palestine. He listed the countries that had benefited from Saudi aid, placing Syria and Egypt at the top.
Tension crept into the conversation, even as we sat eating by the calm, flowing waters of the Nile. I reminded them that this was just a lunch, not an official session, and that we could speak freely and frankly, as brothers. I urged us to return to the issue at hand: we could not simply accept every demand made by the US without serious debate — not after what had happened in Iraq: the invasion, the dismantling of its army, the destruction of its institutions, and the outright dismissal of the Arab Peace Initiative. But at the same time, I stressed that we in Syria believed in reform — not because Washington or the West demanded it, but because it was a need that originated within our own society.
Once tensions had eased, we headed for Cairo Airport and soon reconvened in Tunis for the preparatory ministerial meeting. There, we worked to forge a consensus among the Arab foreign ministers — one that incorporated much of the content from Egypt's reform paper.
At my suggestion, and with what I believed was a persuasive argument, we added a crucial point: that human rights are indivisible and must be upheld universally, particularly by Israel, which continues to occupy our Arab lands and deny Palestinian refugees their right of return.
I felt strongly that if these points made it into the summit's final communiqué the next day, it would represent an important step — a way to bind the issue of human rights to the Palestinian struggle. Still, myself and many of my colleagues were under no illusions - the major industrial powers, especially the US, were unlikely to take any real notice of these demands, particularly those involving Israel's ongoing violations of international law and its occupation of Arab territory.
From the US perspective, its invasion of Iraq was regarded a blow to the entire Arab world, and the fall of Baghdad was intended to serve as a warning of the potential collapse of other Arab capitals. Yet within our own ranks, Arab consensus remained essential. Some ministers even saw the decision to link respect for human rights in the Arab world to Israel's actions as a sensible and strategic move — one that might compel the West, while grappling with global challenges, to finally acknowledge that the Palestinian issue was no less urgent than any of the world's other pressing crises.
Mubarak: Anxious since Sadat's assassination
President Hosni Mubarak was visibly uneasy following the amendments to the Egyptian reform paper. Upon his arrival on the morning of May 21, 2004, he asked to see me immediately in the conference hall, with minister Ahmed Maher present. He wanted to know why Israel had been brought into the discussion. I explained the reasoning behind our decision, emphasising first and foremost the principle that human rights are universal and that no state should be above international law. I reminded him that Arab public opinion was also increasingly vocal and viewed Israel as persistently violating the rights of both Palestinians, and Arabs more broadly. I clarified that under international law, the right of return for Palestinian refugees is indisputable — it is only Israel that refuses to recognise it.
The Arab Summit, scheduled for a single day, opened on the morning of May 21, 2004. I had already briefed President Bashar al-Assad, who had arrived in Tunis the day before, on the substance of our ministerial deliberations — especially how the reform paper now incorporated linkage between Arab reform and the implementation of the Palestinian right of return, a cornerstone of both Palestinian and Arab human rights. Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam dryly remarked that these "were American ideas".
President Bashar found himself in a difficult position. He didn't want anyone to appear more committed to the Palestinian cause than he was. As foreign minister, I explained why I was firmly backing the reform paper: first, because it embraced the program of reform and modernisation that Syria itself was pursuing; second, because the paper had now become an official Arab document on reform; and third, because its adoption would embarrass the industrialised nations — even if we did not expect them to accept it, knowing full well their reluctance to upset Israel.
From the beginning of March 2004, the date of the regular summit in Tunis, until May 22, the day of the conclusion of the postponed Arab summit, all the diplomatic efforts we had undertaken could be placed on one side and what I heard from President Bashar before we left Tunisia on the other.
The president suddenly rushed over to the Tunisian president, who was still standing on the summit podium and looked like he whispered something which pleased Ben Ali. Bashar returned smiling widely, radiating satisfaction across his face, a joy that remained as we prepared to leave the conference hall.
He then told us he had managed to persuade the summit's host to completely remove the whole statement related to "reform" — which had just been adopted unanimously by the summit, and which Amr Moussa had read aloud moments earlier, prompting applause from all the leaders, including President Bashar himself. The president told us, with a sense of triumph, that this manoeuvre — this understated but decisive intervention — was Syria's most important achievement at the Tunis Summit.
Only after our return to Damascus did the full picture become clear. The removal of the summit's reform statement was no impulsive act. Rather, it followed a series of private phone conversations President Ben Ali had held with several Arab leaders. The original communiqué was replaced by a set of vague, rhetorical phrases — lofty in language, but void of substance. And tellingly, this erasure sparked no protest from the other Arab states.
Emptied of substance
The Arab press, by and large, paid little attention to what became of the final summit communiqué on reform — the same document that had been approved at the Arab Summit in Tunis. Few seemed to know why the statement was erased or how it had been replaced with empty rhetoric in the summit's official resolutions.
Perhaps the reason lies in the near-absolute lack of public expectation for any meaningful outcomes from the Tunis Summit — or, indeed, from any Arab summit — in the wake of the Iraq invasion.
Moreover, informed Egyptians, aware of the behind-the-scenes dynamics, were uneasy from the outset — as some of Egypt's state-owned newspapers subtly suggested — with President Mubarak's acceptance of an invitation from the US president to attend the G8 Summit. There, he was expected to present the reform document that President Bush had requested from him in the name of the Arab states — all while American warplanes were bombing Iraqi cities.
Despite the turbulent atmosphere, President Bashar had decided to strengthen Syrian–Tunisian relations — that is, between the Constitutional Democratic Rally led by President Ben Ali and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party led by Assad himself. To that end, he dispatched senior party official, Mohammad Saeed Bkheitan, the Assistant Secretary of the Regional Command, at the head of a high-level party delegation to Tunisia to reinforce this message.
In Assad's view, President Ben Ali was more dependable than many other Arab leaders. I, however, was among those who did not welcome the Syrian delegation's visit to Tunisia. The visit had never been presented to the Regional Command for approval, even though it was clearly a party affair. More importantly, Ben Ali left no space whatsoever for opposition — neither at home nor abroad — and preferred to exile dissenters rather than tolerate them.
What was perhaps most striking, however, was that President Bashar, who had focused so intently on reform over the previous two years, now appeared to be retracting that position — even going so far as to regard the erasure of the reform statement at the Tunis summit as a victory for Syria.
Farouk al-Sharaa is a Syrian politician and diplomat. He served as served as foreign minister from 1984 to 2006, then as vice president until 2014.
This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.
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