Jordan Times
Friday, March 5, 2004
US plan 'too hot to handle'
CAIRO (AFP) — The stakes involved in a US plan for Arab reform were so high that Arab foreign ministers here Thursday sent it to their leaders to debate at a summit in Tunis later this month, the Arab League chief said.The ministers of the 22-member Arab League ended days of intense discussions on the US initiative for political and economic change in the Middle East without reaching a consensus, Secretary General Amr Musa told reporters.
"Given the seriousness of the issue touching on problems tied to national sovereignty and the whole region's future, the ministers decided to send it as it is, and documents related to it, to the heads of state," he said.
Arab monarchs, presidents and other leaders are to hold their summit in Tunis on March 29-30.
After Egypt and Jordan presented separate plans, the ministers had hoped during their meetings here to draft a joint initiative for reform, which would amount to a counterproposal to Washington's "Greater Middle East Initiative."
They described the US initiative as interference in their affairs and criticised its failure to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
However, Qatar on Wednesday criticised Arab states for rejecting the US initiative before knowing its contents.
Washington, which has sought to reassure Arabs that such a plan can only work if reform comes from within, hopes to launch its initiative during a summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations in June.
The US initiative aims to encourage democratic reform and economic opening in the Arab world and other Muslim countries in a bid to abate the frustration and poverty on which international terror is thought to thrive.
Nearly all the Arab countries are ruled by authoritarian regimes.
The ministers nonetheless agreed that political, economic and social reforms sought by Washington must "come from within" and that it was up to each government to set its own pace for change.
In a separate resolution, the ministers called for the respect of human rights in Arab countries.
The ministers agreed to relaunch the Saudi-sponsored peace initiative that Arab leaders adopted at the Beirut summit in 2002, which calls for Israel to return Arab lands seized in 1967 in return for full normalisation of relations.
They hope now to obtain a UN Security Council resolution enshrining the initiative's ideas that also calls for a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
They also urged increased international pressure on Israel to stop building the separation barrier that runs through parts of the West Bank, a barrier Israel says is to stop attackers but Arabs denounce as a land-grab.
The ministers said they were committed to Iraq's territorial integrity and independence as well as the right of Iraqis to run their own affairs freely.
They also denounced "all terrorist acts against civilians, Iraqi security forces, humanitarian groups and diplomatic missions in Iraq." The Arab League earlier in the week welcomed the US-picked Iraqi Governing Council's adoption of a temporary constitution, saying it was an important step on the path to transfer power to Iraqis from coalition forces by June 30.
It amounted to a sign of a normalisation with the Governing Council after the Arab League opposed the US-led war in Iraq and gave a chilly welcome to the arrival of the US-backed political order there in April last year.