From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Arab League was established in 1945 with 7 Founding states, all 7 states have major influence in the Arab World, today the League has 22 members. The League witnessed 11 enlargements, with the largest in 1971 with four members of the Gulf states joining the League.

Future enlargements are not clear now, with only three Arabic Speaking Countries remaining out of the League. Of these, only Eritrea is an observer. Other possible members are Chad and Western Sahara.

This contains past and future enlargements to the Arab League

• 1942 - United Kingdom promotes for the idea of the Arab League to win its battle against Germans in the Middle East.
• 1945 — Leaders of 7 states in the Middle East signed the Alexandria Protocol, thus establishing the first Organization with a Pan-Arabism Ideology in the 20th century. the founding members included, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan entering under the name of Transjordan and Yemen.
• 1953 (First Enlargement) — Libya joins the Arab League after 6 years of its independence from Italy in 1947, this Enlargement is considered the First Enlargement of the Arab League adding an area of 1,759,540 km² to the League.
• 1956(Second Enlargement) — Sudan Joins the League only 2 weeks after its independence from Britain.
• 1 October 1958 (Third Enlargement) - Morocco and Tunisia Succeeds in claiming a seat in the Arab League Headquarters and become official members.
• 1961(Fourth Enlargement)- Kuwait joins the Arab League after 31 days of independence, and becomes the first Asian State to join the League after the founding nations.
• 16 August 1962 (Fifth Enlargement)- Algeria accedes the AL after less than a year after its independence.
• 1971 (Sixth Enlargement) - Considered the largest AL Enlargement with 4 Arab members joining the League, UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, making the Arabs of Asia all members of the League, excluding the Palestinian National Authority.
• 1973 (Seventh Enlargement)- Mauritania Joins the League after 13 years of independence.
• 1974 (Eighth Enlargement)-Somalia joins The Arab League.
• 1976 (Ninth Enlargement) - The Palestine Liberation Organization joins the League.
• 1977 (Tenth Enlargement) - Djibouti joins the Arab League two months before its independence date from France that same year.
• 1993 (Eleventh Enlargement) - Comoros accedes the League making it the member number 22.

• In January 2003, Eritrea joined the Arab League as an observer.

• In September 2006, Venezuela joined the Arab League as an observer.

• In April 2007, India joined the Arab League as an observer.