SIRTE, Libya – Iran’s hardline president Wednesday cancelled his first foreign trip since his re-election was confirmed, leaving African leaders to turn their focus to Somalia and a continental government.
Libyan leader and current AU chief Moamer Kadhafi made no mention of the surprise invitation to Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or his trip’s abrupt cancellation, as he opened the summit in his hometown of Sirte.
Ahmadinejad’s planned visit, just two days after the confirmation of his re-election despite mass street protests, had heightened tensions at the summit where delegates said Kadhafi had extended the invitation without consulting the 53-member bloc.
One of Kadhafi’s other invited guests, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, also cancelled — officially due to a train crash Tuesday that killed 14 people.
Berlusconi had been invited to discuss next week’s Group of Eight rich nations summit in Italy. Ahmadinejad’s visit would have created a diplomatic dilemna for observers from European nations that have criticised Iran’s crackdown on protsts over alleged fraud in the June 12 vote.
Instead, the opening ceremony focused resolutely on the official agenda of promoting agriculture in Africa and on the AU’s work in hotspots from Somalia to Madagascar.
The controversy over Iran had also distracted from Kadhafi’s intense lobbying to push African nations to accept his vision for a greatly empowered AU executive, despite opposition from key countries like South Africa, the region’s economic powerhouse.
Kadhafi wants to bring all the African Union’s existing organs under a single federal authority, part his broader campaign for a “United States of Africa”.
Many countries, especially in eastern and southern Africa, favour a more gradual approach to integration and resent Kadhafi’s pressure to quickly create a more powerful AU Authority.
“The heads of state have agreed on the long-term objective of creating a United States of Africa,” the top AU official Jean Ping told AFP.
“Debate has run for three years on the pace of the reforms. There are some who say it should proceed gradually and others who favour a much more rapid approach,” Ping said. “We have reached a point where a decision needs to be made.”
Ping used his opening remarks to try to pull the leader’s attention back to conflicts that plague the continent, particularly in Somalia, where the African Union has a 4,300-strong peacekeeping force.
“Today the fragile steps toward national peace and reconciliation in Somalia face a perilous test,” Ping told the summit.
“The worst case in Somalia would be a return to a stateless situation and incessant fratricidal attacks,” he said.
“This is also a Somalia in a geo-strategic position heightened by its vulnerability, that could be transformed into an enduring point of support for international terrorism and maritime piracy,” Ping added.
An east African bloc including Somalia and five neighbours is asking the AU to deploy an additional 4,000 troops to the peacekeeping force that is the only thing keeping the internationally-backed government safe from an Islamist insurgent offensive.
The summit is also dealing with a raft of other conflicts.
The AU Peace and Security Council on Tuesday lifted Mauritania’s suspension from the bloc, after the naming of a transitional government to steer the country toward elections on July 18.
In Madagascar, AU-led mediation efforts were suspended last month. Exiled president Marc Ravalomanana is pressing to return, after the opposition leader toppled him with the army’s blessing.
The summit also must decide how to react to the international war crimes warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir over atrocities in Darfur. Beshir has been travelling to countries without treaty obligations to the International Criminal Court to rally support for a suspension of the warrant.
