CAIRO: The General Secretariat of the League of Arab States has clarified in an official statement that it has no media partner in covering the work of the 31st Arab Summit to be held in Algeria on Nov. 1-2.
The league also confirmed that it has no connection with any media organization making such claims.
The General Secretariat called on all media outlets to exercise great care in attributing the information published on their websites to the Arab League or its institutions.
The league’s statement comes against the background of reservations from the Moroccan delegation over Algerian international channel AL24 News publishing a map of the Arab world on its website that contradicts the map used by the league.
The General Secretariat confirmed that the Arab League does not have an official map on which the borders of the Arab countries are shown, adopting instead a map of the Arab world without showing the borders between countries in order to reinforce the concept of Arab unity, according to the statement.
The league attached a picture of the map it adopted to its statement and this map appears without borders between its member states.
A high-ranking Moroccan diplomatic source, cited by the Moroccan News Agency, confirmed that Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita never left the premises of the preparatory meeting of Arab foreign ministers for the Arab Summit in Algeria, following a dispute with his Algerian counterpart.
The source rejected as baseles claims about the departure of the Moroccan delegation from the meeting room.
The MAP news agency quoted the same source as saying that the delegation remained inside the hall and protested the lack of respect for the map of Morocco, which forced the league to issue a clarification statement, prompting the session’s presidency to offer an apology.
The same source emphasized that it was not within the rules and customs of Moroccan diplomatic work, according to royal directives, for the delegation to leave the meeting room but to defend Morocco’s legitimate rights and its vital interests within these meetings.
Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamr presided over the preparatory meeting of foreign ministers in a prelude to next month’s summit.
