The Arab foreign ministers met on Thursday at the Arab League's Cairo headquarters and discussed a wide range of regional issues and the reforms of the 60-year-old pan-Arab organization.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Abdullah al-Kurbi told reporters at the end of the one-day meeting that the ministers and delegates of the 22 member states discussed situation in Iraq as well as Syrian-Lebanese issue.

"We held an important meeting today against the backdrop that Syria and Lebanon now face a critical moment after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and that the international community refinds its interest in the Palestinian problem after years of negligence," noted Kurbi, whose country holds the chairmanship of the current Arab foreign ministerial council.

Syria is under mounting international pressure to implement the UN resolution calling for Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon.

Upon the request of Syria, the Syrian-Lebanese issue did not enter the formal agenda of the meeting, but the Arab foreign ministers held informal talks on the issue at a closed-door session in view of its importance and impact on the whole region, an Arab diplomatic source told Xinhua.

The Arab foreign ministers demanded that the Syrian-Lebanese issue be resolved within an Arab framework, the source added, referring to the 1989 Taif agreement ending the Lebanese civil war.

Speaking of a possible change to the AL charter to improve the pan-Arab organization's decision-making system and voting mechanism, Kurbi said the Arab foreign ministers had decided to make it top on the agenda of the upcoming Arab summit due on March 22-23 in the Algerian capital Algiers.

AL Secretary General Amr Moussa, standing side by side with Kurbi, added that the Arab foreign ministers had approved in principle reform of the decision-making system in an effort to develop joint Arab action.

On the Iraq issue, Kurbi said the Arab countries welcome the Jan. 30 parliamentarian elections as a "major step toward democracy."

The Arab foreign ministers also believe foreign occupation of the country must be ended and it is important to launch the national reconciliation process among different Iraqi political and religious groups, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2005)