Sparks flew at an emergency Islamic summit Wednesday, with Iraq's number two Ezzat Ibrahim branding Kuwait's junior foreign minister a "monkey" and vowing to teach the United States a lesson it would never forget.

Kuwait's Sheikh Mohammad Sabah al-Sabah rose to interrupt Ibrahim after the vice president of Iraq's Revolution Command Council accused Kuwaiti leaders of "plotting with Zionism against Iraq".

The Iraqi unleashed a volley of abuse. "You are small, a valet and a monkey," he charged.

"Shut up," Sheikh Mohammad lashed back, prompting an appeal for calm and decorum from the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, whose country is the current head of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990 and was finally driven out of the emirate by a US-led military coalition in 1991.

Wednesday's nasty exchange marked an ominous start to a special OIC gathering called here to forge a unified Islamic response to US threats to invade and occupy Iraq.

But only a handful of Islamic heads of state or government, notably President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, turned up for the one-day session, with most delegations represented by senior officials.

Organizers said they hoped to arrive at a resolution opposing any US or British assault on Iraq while appealing to Baghdad to respect United Nations disarmament demands.

Sheikh Hamad in an opening address underlined the "exceptional circumstances" prevailing in the region and recognized that Muslims do not "have the international political or strategic decisions that direct and command these developments.

"Yet we can certainly influence the course of these developments."
He said the goal of the OIC should be to help "Iraq get out of this crisis in such a way that spares it and us a costly price or irremediable grave damage."
The summit comes as the United States and Britain mass nearly 300,000 troops in the region and are threatening to occupy Iraq to oust President Saddam Hussein and eliminate the weapons of mass destruction they say he is concealing.

Ibrahim, Saddam's deputy, vowed Wednesday that Iraq would teach the United States "an unforgettable lesson" if it attacked Baghdad.

"We will give the invaders an unforgettable lesson," he warned, adding that Iraq was capable of raising an "army of seven million armed and well-trained men."
He appealed to fellow Islamic states to refrain from "according facilities to our common enemy" and insisted that rejecting aggression against Iraq was a religious duty for Muslims.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman -- all members of the OIC -- have made military installations available to US forces in the region.

But as the Arab League and the Non-Aligned Movement have done in recent gatherings, the OIC was also expected to press Iraq to cooperate fully with UN directives to identify and destroy its banned weapons -- a point underscored by Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul.

He appealed to Iraq to "demonstrate a real change in its orientation" toward compliance with UN disarmament demands.

Embattled Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who addressed the summit in a video message, added his voice to calls for a peaceful resolution in Iraq.

"We support all regional and international efforts to reach a peaceful solution within the framework of the United Nations," Arafat said.

He spoke at length of the deteriorating situation in the Palestinian territories and accused the Israeli government of "seeking to torpedo the peace process."
Arafat called on the summit, which represents more than one billion Muslims, "to step up their material and political support" to the Palestinians - Sapa-AFP