Arab senior officials debate crisis management mechanism

Senior Arab officials are meeting in Cairo on Wednesday for two days to confer about establishing a crisis management mechanism, in line with an Arab League ministerial decision.
Addressing the gathering at the Arab League headquarters, head of the League's Media and Communication Department Haifa Abu Ghazaleh stressed the importance of the discussions amid the cross-border armed conflicts and political and human crises sweeping the region, taking toil on some Arab states.
This prompts boosting cooperation to counter them, she said, warning against escalation of the "terrorism and ideological extremism phenomenon." The meeting aims at crystalizing a mechanism, an open network, for managing the various crises in the Arab region, making benefit of others' experience, Abu Ghazaleh said.
The proposed mechanism is to be submitted to the League's coming ministerial meeting, and later to the Arab Summit Cairo in March.
At present the chief goal of the would-be mechanism will be building capabilities and exchanging expertise and training, she said.
She noted that discussions coincide with completing the first phase of the Arab League's crisis management department, equipped with the latest technology for gathering information and analyzing it, to support decision makers on effective handling of crises.
Today's meeting follows a regional conference held in Amman last April, which urged urged the Arab countries to enhance cooperation for countering crises in the region.