Under Fire, Hassan Quits as Arab League Head

King Hassan II of Morocco resigned Sunday as president of the Arab League in the wake of protests over his two-day surprise summit meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, the official Moroccan Press Agency said.

Hassan, who met Peres last Tuesday and Wednesday, resigned the presidency of the 21-nation group in a letter to Arab League Secretary General Chedli Klibi. The Arab League also includes the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“We have taken notice of the reactions provoked and the feelings expressed in certain Arab capitals of our meeting with Mr. Shimon Peres,” said the letter. “We have decided to put an end to our presidency of the Arab Summit Conference so that neither with regards to this conference nor as a host country can the kingdom of Morocco constitute an obstacle in the path of the Arab summit process.”

Under Arab League rules, the group’s president organizes and hosts the next summit, and countries angered by the king’s talks with Peres could refuse to attend if it was held in Morocco.

Hassan had been president of the league since a 1982 summit in which Arab leaders agreed that basic conditions for peace with Israel were that Israel recognize the PLO and withdraw from lands captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

The Hassan-Peres meeting was the first discussion between an Israeli and Arab leader since Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat negotiated the Camp David treaty in 1978, and the Arab reaction was strong and swift.

Syria severed diplomatic relations with Morocco, the Moroccan Embassy in Beirut was stormed by Muslim fundamentalists and the PLO, Algeria and Libya condemned the talks.