• January 17, 1964: The first Arab summit with 13 members was held in Cairo, Egypt. The summit formally approved the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
  • September 1, 1967: The third summit was held in Khartoum, Sudan and convened after the Six-Day War. This conference agreed to take all measures to regain occupied lands. The summit issued the famous "three no's": "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel."
  • October 29, 1974: The summit was held in Rabat, Morocco. It affirmed the "right of the Palestinians to self-determination and to return to their homeland." Despite Jordan's reservations, the conference acknowledged the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
  • October 26, 1976: The summit was held in Cairo, Egypt to discuss the crisis in Lebanon. It resolved to establish a special fund to finance the operations of Arab Deterrent Force in Lebanon.
  • November 5, 1978: The summit was held in Baghdad, Iraq and resolved that the agreements signed by the Egyptian government at Camp David harmed the rights of the Palestinian people. The Arab League froze its relations with Egypt.
  • November 6, 1981: Held in Fez, Morocco, the summit's first session resolved to lay a "comprehensive Arab strategy" regarding Israeli involvement in Lebanon. This session was suspended due to unbridgeable differences over Saudi Arabia's eight-point Fahd Plan.
  • September 25, 1982: The second session was held at Fez, Morocco, where the summit, considering Syria's reservations on clause seven, accepted a revised version of the Fahd Plan. The idea of compensation for Palestinians who did not wish to return to Israel was brought to the table for the first time.
  • November 11, 1987: The summit was held in Jordan and endorsed the UN Security Council Resolution 598 of July 1987 regarding a ceasefire to the Iran-Iraq war, and declared that any decision to resume relations with Egypt "would be left to individual states to decide."
  • May 26, 1989: The summit was held in Casablanca, Morocco. The Arab League "strongly supported" the Palestinian National Council's decision to pursue "a peaceful settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute." Egypt resumed its seat in the league after nearly a decade of suspension.
  • August 10, 1990: An emergency summit in Cairo was called to respond to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The conference condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and demanded "an immediate, unconditional and complete withdrawal of Iraqi troops from that country." A resolution to establish an Arab force — which would be deployed between Iraq and Kuwait to enforce an Arab solution to the current Gulf crisis — was accepted.
  • June 22, 1996: The summit was held in Cairo. This was the first summit since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and Iraq was not invited.
  • March 28, 2001: The two-day summit held in Amman, Jordan aimed at showing support for the Palestinian intifada and boosting unity among Arab states.
  • March 3, 2003: Held in Egypt, the summit expressed Arab countries' rejection of any attack against Iraq. The Arab League underlined the importance of giving enough time to UN to complete their investigations on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
  • May 23, 2004: The summit was held in Tunis, Tunisia. The summit council strongly branded the abuses perpetrated by US soldiers on Iraqi prisoners and stressed the necessity that Iraq regains its sovereignty.
  • March 23, 2005: The summit was held in Algiers, Algeria. It enlightened divisions in the Arab League: only 13 heads of states out of the 22 member states showed up.
  • March 28-29, 2006: The summit was held in Khartoum, Sudan. It fielded a disappointing turn-out of only 12 heads of state. The absence of 10 leaders was a blow to Sudanese calls for solidarity in the Arab world in the wake of western criticism.
  • March 29, 2007: The summit held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Arab leaders urged Israel to accept an Arab peace initiative first proposed in 2002. Under the plan, Arab nations would recognise Israel if Israel withdrew from land occupied in the 1967 war.
  • March 29, 2008: A controversial and partly boycotted Arab League summit ended in Damascus, Syria with no progress on the Lebanese political crisis and a summit declaration that Iraq refused to endorse.
  • March 30, 2009: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak skipped the summit held in Doha, Qatar. Arab states rejected an international arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir and demanded that Israel respond to a seven-year-old Arab peace initiative within a defined time-frame. They also agreed to establish a legal committee to seek the prosecution of Israeli leaders over Israel's 22-day bombardment of the Gaza in 2008. The summit also called for the international community to help prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East region and work towards a "weapons-free zone".

— Compiled by Gulf News Archives