19th Arab Summit opens in Riyadh

The 19th Arab Summit opened here in the afternoon of today. Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Al Bashir, inaugurated the summit at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Centre.President H.H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is participating in the summit, which is also being attended by 17 other Arab heads of states. Libya is boycotting the summit, while Lebanon is participating with two different official delegates, one being led by the Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud, while the other delegation is being headed by the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora.The opening session was attended by Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, who is the current chairman of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon and a host of others. Source