An Arab League summit has opened in Baghdad, the first such meeting in the Iraqi capital since former dictator Saddam Hussein's forces invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990.
Amid tight security, a three-day Arab League summit is under way in Baghdad, but only around half of the leaders of the 22 Arab League member states are expected to take part.
Iraq's envoy to the Arab League, Qais al-Azawi, says the upcoming, twenty-third Arab League summit in Baghdad has assumed greater significance in the wake of the Arab Spring popular uprisings.
A proposal to alter the Arabic-language Iraqi national anthem to make room for verses in the minority Kurdish and Turkoman languages has exposed discord between Arab politicians and minority leaders who have called for a more inclusive anthem.
Iraq's parliamentary committee on oil and energy has called for negotiations aimed at reopening an oil pipeline to Saudi Arabia that was decommissioned in the wake of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
