European Union and Mediterrranean leaders clinched a last-minute agreement on a code of conduct to fight terrorism today at the end of a summit most Arab leaders stayed away from.
Diplomats said the compromise came when the EU dropped its insistence on saying the right to self-determination did not justify terrorism, and Arab countries dropped their demand to include a right to resist foreign occupation.
"There's an agreement on a weaker compromise," one diplomat involved in the talks said.
The deal follows a disappointing summit involving the European Union and 10 Mediterranean nations.
Foreign ministers of the 35 countries failed at a late-night session to resolve differences over whether to distinguish between terrorism and a right to resist occupation, and what to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Previous meetings of the EuroMed group, launched in Barcelona 10 years ago, have been at foreign minister level. Nearly all EU leaders turned up. But political problems or ill health kept most Mediterranean leaders - including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - away.
That undermined the prestige of a meeting which EU leaders wanted to extend co-operation across the Mediterranean to help combat terrorism and illegal immigration.