Arab League envoy to Iraq quits

The Arab League envoy to Baghdad, one of the few Arab diplomats still in the city, has resigned because of a lack of "Arab vision" over the conflict in Iraq, according to his resignation letter obtained by AFP Sunday.
In an eight-page hand-written letter dated January 22, Mokhtar Lamani said he had decided to quit at the end of February, due to the widening divisions among the Iraqi people and the lack of a regional consensus on how to end the conflict.
"In the face of the bitter and painful events as well as the inability to achieve anything serious or positive, in my opinion, I am obliged to inform you that I have decided to leave my mission at the end of February," he said in his letter to the league's secretary general, Amr Mussa.
Lamani, a Moroccan, was one of the few Arab diplomats working in Baghdad, with most ambassadors from other nations performing their duties from the Jordanian capital of Amman. He refused to comment when contacted by AFP from Cairo.
The resignation comes as blow to the Iraqi government which has long argued for increased Arab diplomatic representation.
In a stark admission of helplessness, Lamani detailed the reasons he believed his mission was "impossible," including internal factors.
"The Iraqis do not agree on a united approach to their problems," he wrote. "Their relations are characterised by a total lack of trust, and the people of Iraq are blindly sticking to deeply entrenched positions.
"What I see from inside is that Iraq is more and more being used as a battlefield for different organisations, movements and countries in the region," he added.
Even in the face of the looming crisis, however, Arab countries do not seem ready to address the problem, he warned.
"There is a complete absence of a steadfast and serious Arab vision to address this situation, indeed there is not even a consciousness of the necessity to find this vision," he wrote. Lamani, 56, was appointed in March 2006 by Arab foreign ministers with a mission of aiding national reconciliation efforts in the country which is wracked by conflict between its different ethnic and sectarian groups.
An Arab League national reconciliation conference following up on a similar meeting held in Cairo in November 2005 has been continuously delayed.
Arab diplomats in Baghdad have been repeatedly targeted by insurgents, with the Egyptian ambassador-designate kidnapped and murdered in July 2005 and an Emirati diplomat kidnapped in May 2006.
On Sunday, the flagship Egyptian state-owned daily quoted an anonymous diplomatic source saying that the Egyptian ambassador had been killed at the behest of Iranian agents looking to reduce Egyptian influence in the country.
Both the Egyptian and Iranian governments denied the report.