Jordan Times
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Jordan reassured on US reform plans
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said he had been reassured on US ideas about reforms for the Middle East after a meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell here.
“I'm very reassured by what the secretary said about the reform efforts coming from the region and not being enforced from outside,” Muasher told reporters. “I think it is important, also, for the region to come up with a credible and serious reform process, and this is, indeed, what we are doing,” he added. “I briefed the secretary on some of these efforts, both in terms of what Jordan is doing as well as what we are doing in the region.”
Washington hopes to launch its “Greater Middle East Initiative” for economic and political reform in Arab and Muslim countries at a summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in June.
But several Arab countries, including US allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have criticised the deal, fearing Washington wants to stamp its own cultural models on the region.
Arab countries also insist that the United States helps find a settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to improve the atmosphere for general reform.
Muasher also said “any reform effort also has to include necessarily strong engagement and attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict; that while the region is not using this as an excuse for not moving forward, it [is] also a fact that moving forward is going to be aided to a great extent by serious attention and resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and that both efforts have to move in parallel.”
Powell said the United States had no intention of imposing reforms on any Arab nation.