LOC21:15
18:15 GMT
CAIRO, June 24 (KUNA) -- The Arab Water Ministers Council will convene its
second session late next week to review the implementation of the results of
the First Arab Economic, Social and Development Summit, hosted by Kuwait in
January 2009, a senior Arab League official said here Thursday.
The meeting, to take place at the headquarters of the league here on
Thursday, will probe the progress made in the development of a common Arab
strategy for achieving water security and facing up to challenges of the
future, the league's Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Affairs Dr.
Mohammad Ibrahim Al-Twaijri told reporters.
"On top of the 18-item agenda of the two-day gathering will be the Israeli
stealth of water resources in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, south Lebanon
and the Palestinian territories," he pointed out.
"The ministerial meeting will probe Israel's deliberate destruction of the
infrastructure of water supplies and drainage system in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip as well as the related impacts on the Palestinian economy.
"It will also discuss the subjects of water desalination and manipulation
of subterranean water as viable solutions to the problem of scarcity of fresh
water in the Arab region," Al-Twaijri noted.
The league has tasked the Technical Secretariat of the Arab Water Council
(AWC) to work with its member states as well as the international major
players to arrange for an international conference on Arab water resources
under occupation, he disclosed.
"Preparations are also underway for the Sixth World Water Forum, due to
open in Marseille, France, on June 12, 2012," he noted, adding that the
Executive Office of the Arab Water Ministers Council would meet on Wednesday
to set the stage for the ministerial meeting. (end)
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