The Kremlin announced Thursday that it had postponed the planned Russia-Arab summit in Moscow after President Vladimir Putin and his Iraqi counterpart agreed that many Arab leaders would be unable to attend the event next week amid the “active phase” of Washington’s peace plan in Gaza.
However, Bloomberg later cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that the real reason for the cancellation was that too few regional leaders had confirmed their attendance.
Among the 22 Arab heads of state invited to the Oct. 15 forum, only Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and the head of the Arab League had reportedly confirmed their attendance as of earlier this week.
Major regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates did not confirm their participation, Bloomberg’s sources said.
Putin said on Friday that he had offered to postpone the summit “because I don’t want to interfere” with U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza deal, which could bring Israel and the Hamas militant group closer to ending the war than any previous effort.
“If Donald succeeds in accomplishing everything he set out to do… it would be a truly historic event,” Putin told reporters in Tajikistan.
Analysts told Bloomberg the apparent summit snub may signal that much of the Arab world is more interested in building ties with Trump than taking part in Russia’s efforts to showcase its support and influence across the region.
Bloomberg’s source called the last-minute postponement “disappointing,” but expressed confidence that the event would take place at a later date.
The Kremlin statement said the summit was put off until a “later date to be further agreed upon.”
Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yury Ushakov, said Moscow was “tentatively aiming for November.”
“It depends on how the Trump plan is implemented. Maybe our Arab friends will advise us as well. We’ll take all perspectives into account,” Ushakov told a Russian journalist.
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