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Algeria's call for an Arab Summit Conference to discuss Egypt's return to the Arab League was generally welcomed by the Gulf states as well as Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan and Mauritania. However, the widening repercussions of the Achille Lauro hijack have now made it most unlikely that a summit conference dealing with the question of Egypt could be held.

The decision of the Sultanate of Oman to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union had not been anticipated by other Arab countries and came as a complete surprise to western powers. The agreement to open diplomatic links between the two countries was reached at a meeting between Omani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Yousuf al Alawi Abdullah and the Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in New York, where both Ministers were attending the United Nations sessions of the General Assembly.

Saudi Arabia's decision to buy British 'Tornado' aircraft and 'Hawk' jet trainers was announced shortly after it became known that the Reagan Administration had decided not to include 40 additional F-15 combat aircraft for Saudi Arabia in its official request for arms sales to Congress. The British sale was immediately denounced by Israel; a statement by the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the deal was 'escalating the arms race in the Middle East to a level that undermines the stability of the region'.

When the recent Casablanca summit formed its two conciliation commissions to try to end inter-Arab political squabbles, the committees were directed to the disputes between Syria and Iraq, Syria and Jordan, Libya and Iraq and Libya and the PLO. The mediating teams (Saudi Arabia and Tunisia to soothe Syria's quarrels, and the UAE, Morocco and Mauritania to arbitrate in Libya's wrangles) and the objects of their good offices made up nearly half of the Arab League's total membership.

The Reagan Administration's top Middle East official, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, has returned to Washington at the conclusion of his Middle East tour. His trip was, according to a State Department announcement,. "to explore the prospects for movement in the Arab-Israeli peace process". Or, in plainer words, to see if the terms for a discussion between the US and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation could be agreed by those closely concerned.

Denounced by Libya, castigated by Syria, disparaged by Algeria, criticised by South Yemen and rejected by Lebanon, the emergency Arab Summit conference opened in Casablanca last week with the remaining member nations of the Arab League putting as brave a face as possible on their unenthusiastic attendance.

Arming a set of 'conditions' listed by Washington which the Soviet Union should meet before being accepted by the United States into the Middle East peace process, was Moscow's resumption of diplomatic relations with Israel (Saudi Arabia Newsletter No. 148). At the time it was thought by various observers (including this Newsletter) that the Soviet Union would reject out of hand the notion that the US is in any position to set out 'conditions' for participation in a Middle East political settlement, and no change in the frozen Soviet-Israeli relations was likely.

Meeting in Saudi Arabia last week, the Foreign Ministers' of the six GCC states were to discuss the general current concerns of the council, including a joint GCC plan to combat terrorism in the region. As foreign ministers they no doubt took the wider view of the subjects before them and therefore included the larger political implications behind today's manifestations of political terrorism. Whatever particular security blue-print they were to consider, the foreign ministers would have known it was quite out of- date before they even sat down together.

The Gulf Arab countries have a very particular interest in the increasingly complicated issues surrounding the hijacking of the US aircraft and the holding of 37 American hostages by Lebanese Shia militia. A marked absence of official statements from the six states of the Gulf Co-operation Council and, indeed, a dearth of unofficial comment, is a measure of their concern rather than of their indifference.

The special session of the Arab League which met in Tunis last week to discuss the attacks on the Palestine refugee camps in Lebanon managed to pass an enfeebled - and unenforceable - resolution after two days of discussion. The meeting, called at the request of the PLO who wanted a commission of enquiry into alleged massacres of Palestinians by Syrian-backed Shia Amal militia and a condemnation of Syrian involvement, agreed only to a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of forces besieging" the camps, and for the International Red Cross to be able to enter the camps.

The attempt on the life of the Amir of Kuwait, Shaikh Jabr al Ahmad al Sabah, is a shocking confirmation of the extension into the Gulf region of the detestable activities of the Shia Islamic Jihad organization. Last week our sister publication, Saudi Arabia Newsletter said, with a cheerless prescience, "A spread of the religious fanaticism and political extremism represented by the Islamic Jihad organisation has as many dangers for all the countries of the Peninsula as the more easily recognised risks of openly declared war."

A possible confrontation between the government and the National Assembly appears to have been averted, at least temporarily, by the resignation earlier this month of Kuwait Minister of Justice Shaikh Salman al Duaij alSabah. Ten National Assembly members had earlier tabled a no-confidence motion against the Minister, accusing him of exploiting his ministerial post for personal gain. The deputies had charged that Shaikh Salman's twelve-year old son had received KD1.4m (about $4.5m) from the KD50m trust fund created by the government to pay small creditors of the Manakh stock market crash.

The US assistant Secretary of State, Richard Murphy, having completed his round of Middle East capitals, returned to Washington bearing a gloomy report on the progress - or rather the lack of it - on gaining support for the American version of a Middle East peace process.

As the war between Iraq and Iran grinds remorselessly into its fifth year, something akin to despair is afflicting the outlook, the actions, and the policies (so far as the latter can be said to exist) of increasingly alarmed neighbours of the two contestants and those who have attempted mediation.

Iraq's new tough war policy is a direct result of Baghdad's considered assessment that Iran cannot be brought to a negotiating position by political or diplomatic persuasions. As one senior Iraqi official put it recently, "From, now on it will be total war or total peace" . President Saddam Hussain, in a recent speech, said Iraq was opposed to partial ceasefire measures and wanted a 'comprehensive peace'.