Dubai: Wedged between Russian communism and Western liberalism, the Arab world needs to reform its vision if it is to meet a stronger future independent of outside influences, said Dr Nabeel Fahmi, former Foreign Minister of Egypt, on Wednesday in Dubai.
Speaking at the Arab Strategy Forum, Fahmi said global intervention in Middle East crises “have overshadowed our political weight” and he called upon Arab countries “to better relations with others to strengthen our regional powers”.
Fahmi said “there are many questions being asked in the Arab world about identity, the forward-looking vision and going back to religion and politics”. A unified Arab approach is possible by working together, he said, but it won’t be easy.
“Arabs have to choose if we want to reform our situation but we have to go on a long path,” he said.
Panellist Professsor Gassan Salame, political thinker, told delegates at the forum that many questions and possibilities await in 2017, chief among them being the fate of millions of Syrian refugees who have fled the country to safety.
“Six million Syrians live outside Syria. What is their future?” asked Salame, noting that half of them now live in Lebanon and Germany. “Will the regime accept their return? Who will pay for the cost of their return?”
Salame also noted that the successful retaking of rebel-held Aleppo by Syrian forces does not mean that the war in that country is any closer to an end.
With the “huge reservoir of weapons in the hands of the people, the end of Aleppo is not the end of the war”, he said.
Fahmi said whatever the outcome of Syria’s conflict, he doesn’t believe world powers, namely US President-elect Donald Trump. will walk away from the region in 2017.
He said that “neither Putin nor Trump want a confrontation in Syria, they want to contain it so it does not spill over. The US will not withdraw from the region. Trump will not look at the region like his predecesssors did”.
