Doha, Qatar ? Iraq’s envoy called a Kuwaiti diplomat a “monkey” and a “traitor” in a rare public display of divisions at an Islamic forum convened Wednesday to seek a unified stance against any U.S.-led war on Iraq.

The angry name-calling, broadcast live on satellite television, was the second time in a week Arabs across the region got to watch tensions usually kept behind closed doors erupting between their leaders.

The gathering of the Organization of the Islamic Conference at which the spat took place made little diplomatic progress. The 57-member OIC summit issued a final statement that broke no new ground, welcoming Iraqi cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors and expressing hope it would continue. The leaders rejected any military strike against Iraq.

It was the third high-level gathering in the region in a week aimed at staving off war and came as calls grew stronger for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave office and go into exile.

After Kuwait’s foreign minister used his speech to the summit to call on Saddam to step down to avert war, Iraq’s Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri described the Kuwaiti minister in his own speech as “swaggering and rude” and accused him of “threatening Iraq’s security at the core” by allowing U.S. troops on Kuwaiti soil.

Sheik Mohammed Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah, another minister in the Kuwaiti delegation, interrupted al-Douri with comments that were inaudible to viewers at home and to reporters watching via closed-circuit. Officials in the summit chamber later said he called the Iraqi’s remarks lies.

Al-Douri responded: “Shut up you monkey. Curse be upon your mustache, you traitor.” “Mustache” is a traditional Arabic term for honor.

“This is hypocrisy and falsehood,” Sheik Mohammed shot back.

Kuwait’s information minister, Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al-Ahmed, leapt up and waved a small Kuwaiti flag that had been on the desk, trying to get the chairman to give the floor to the Kuwaitis.

But the summit’s host, Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, said: “We are not here for such exchanges,” and moved on to the next speaker, from Afghanistan.

Sheik Hamad scolded al-Douri, vice chairman of Saddam’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council, telling him: “You started your speech with a verse from the Quran saying, ‘Thou shalt be united by the word of God.”‘

The exchange was reminiscent of a squabble Saturday at an Arab League summit convened in Egypt to discuss the Iraq crisis.

There, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah objected to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s remarks about Persian Gulf countries’ willingness to host American forces.

Gadhafi said Saudi King Fahd had acknowledged to him a willingness to “cooperate with the devil” to protect his country from Iraq during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. Abdullah called Gadhafi “an agent for colonizers.”