Ambassador Karim Kawar

Interview with Voice of America

January 10, 2005 

Topics: Palestinian Elections, Iraq Elections, Jordan/Iran relations

VOICE OF AMERICA: : Does Jordan plan on working with the newly elected Palestinian president to help establish a Palestinian state? If so, in what ways?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: Of course Jordan has been very involved in the Palestinian issue, we have been big supporters of the road map, which was presented in 2003. As you remember, Jordan also hosted the Akabba summit, which gathered leaders including President Bush who supported the road map when Mahmoud Abbas was Prime Minister. Mahmoud Abbas, who is now president of the Palestinians, has not changed his position in terms of his view of a 2 state solution, which is one of the corner stones of the road map. So we have been working very closely with the Palestinians as well as the Israelis with the support of the American administration to move forward in this process. Now that he is elected with a landslide victory, this gives us more hope that the armed resistance would be stopped and that there would be a non-violent resistance to occupation in the Palestinian territories. Many lives have been lost and it is important to spare the lives that are left and also to provide with the Palestinians with hope that there is a brighter future in having a peaceful state established that is viable and is based on international resolutions.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : Many argue that “Democracy cannot happen overnight”. What are the challenges that the new Palestinian government will have to face?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: In the Palestinian territories it’s not happening overnight, there has been a democratic society in the making for many years and in Jordan we believe that democracy should be based on certain pillars including human rights, freedom of speech, the rights of women, traditional reform, economic freedoms. Those are the pillars which make up a democratic society. Where those do not exist then democracy cannot happen overnight, we have to build those structures but in the Palestinian territories, the Palestinians have been experiencing various forms of democracy. They have had many elections before but now with the presidential elections and two weeks before that with the municipal elections, so again they are exercising their right to vote and their right to representation and so those are all positive steps in the Palestinian elections.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : What does the Palestinian election mean to the peace process?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: I think that it is positive. It wasn’t the only impediment to the peace process and this is where earlier the expectations of the Palestinians were to establish a democracy that stands to higher standards than that of Scandinavian countries, which is not possible. Because let’s also remember that you are establishing a democracy in the Palestinian region that are under occupation. So again what was witnessed yesterday in the elections that there wasn’t free freedom of movement among Palestinians. Some could not get to the polling stations especially in Jerusalem. So there were such restrictions and I think if we look once the Palestinian state is fully established, I think there will be even a larger turnout of people and in such elections we always have to respect the outcome. Now as far as the peace process, now we have a legitimately elected leader of the Palestinian authority who has been very supportive of the road map. We think that we can move forward but frankly now President Abbas cannot do it on it’s own, he needs the support of Israel and Prime minister Sharon in changing the day to day lives of the Palestinian people. The Palestinians have to see now that with new leadership, there is hope, their lives change, they have freedom of movement, there are no more curfews, they can earn a better living that Israel may release many of the detainees that are held in Israeli prisons w/o charge, that there would be a resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians within the frame work of the road map so that we can move forward. We don’t have to go very far back, there have been many agreements and disagreements between the Israeli’s and the Palestinians and I think those provide a platform to start from rather than to restart negotiations from scratch.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : What role does Jordan envision for itself in the peace process?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: Jordan always sees itself as playing a supportive role at the end of the day, it is a Palestinian issue, and the Palestinians have to negotiate their final status issues with the Israelis and the two people have to live with those decisions that they make. Jordan is supportive. As you know, Jordan is home to a large Palestinian community who have lived in Jordan over the past 5 to 6 decades. So for us, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state is of national security interest to us. Our role will be very supportive in terms of helping Palestinians achieve their statehood through non-violent means. So, we will wait to see what the Palestinians ask us in terms of help and assistance. 43:40

VOICE OF AMERICA: : A few weeks ago, you stated in one of your interviews that “We are one country that cannot afford a failure in Iraq”. What did you mean by that statement?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: Jordan looks at Iraq as a natural extension. Our economies depend on Iraq and Iraq’s livelihood also now depends on Jordan. We primarily see that if the situation develops into a larger crisis in Iraq, it will undermine the stability of the whole region and for this reason we cannot afford a failure and for this reason it’s our duty and responsibility to help Iraq establish it’s stability so that it can be a reason for hope in the region. Recently, Jordan hosted last week seven Iraqi neighbors meeting in Aman where all the countries were represented: Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt, and the representative from the UN. A communiqué was issued that emphasized the role that neighboring countries continue to play. This is not the first meeting; this is the seventh meeting where there has been a lot of agreement within the neighbors. First and foremost, preserving Iraq’s territorial integrity that Iraq should be maintained as one country. It should not be divided. We should avoid any potential of a civil war in Iraq that through democracy and through elections, hopefully, Iraq will have the legitimate government that will represent it. Of course the interim government is doing a lot of work and it’s getting the support of all of it’s neighboring countries to help it achieve it’s mission. But ultimately, there will be a representative body that would form an elected government and we move forward in achieving a democracy in Iraq. With that said, in the absence of security, we have seen all the attacks and terrorism, all the lives lost, we feel that the elections will be hampered. We underline the importance that elections in Iraq should be comprehensive that all Iraqis should participate. They all should have their right to cast their votes. We are concerned that with the security situation that not all parts of Iraq will have the chance to participate in elections and therefore that would cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the elections. But we are doing everything we can to encourage all Iraqis to participate in the elections from running for office to casting their votes.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : What are some of the challenges that the provisional Iraqi government is facing with regard to the election?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: The challenge first and foremost is security: is the environment secure enough for the Iraqis to be able to go to the voting ballots and to cast their votes without being threatened or having fears of going through that process. For this reason, Jordan has been very focused on supporting the Iraqis. We believe that the Iraqi’s are the best ones capable of manning their own streets and neighborhood and establishing security in Iraq and therefore we have undertaken the support of Iraqi police. We are training 35,000 Iraqi police over 2 years. So far, over 12,000 have been trained and have gone back to Iraq. But that number is still small. Iraq is a big country with vast borders and they need larger security apparatus to be able to deal with the security situation. I think security will be the biggest challenge that the government will face.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : What would the implications be of success or failure of the Iraqi transformation to democracy for the region?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: Well of course the success would be a good example. Of course, the way we have reached elections in Iraq should not be the model that we need to apply in all other countries. We always believe that change has to come from within and that democracy has to be a homegrown crop. There is no one model that can apply to all countries. Everyone country has to evolve into its own model of democracy. For example, in Jordan today, we do not have a perfect democracy, however, other democracies don’t matter, and it is our own model that has evolved significantly over the past 15 years. Certainly, we are sharing our experience with other countries in the region. They can draw on that experience, we have been drawing on other experiences as well. The success in Iraq would be a positive thing and a failure in Iraq would be a disaster because again it would give more power to those who oppose democracies and would encourage them not to participate in such modes of community.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : King Abdullah accused Iran of trying to influence the upcoming Iraqi elections in order to create a “crescent” dominated by Shiites extending from Iraq to Lebanon. Iran responded to this accusation by boycotting last week’s Amman conference on the future of Iraq by replacing the foreign minister with a lower ranking official. How has this turn of events affected diplomatic relations between Jordan and the Islamic Republic?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: I don’t think Iran boycotted the meeting, I mean Iran was represented in the meeting not at the foreign ministers level but Iran was represented which is important. The King’s comments were primarily, and this has been stressed over and over again, that Iraq’s neighbors should not interfere in Iraqi issues. I would go back to the case when the question was raised whether Jordan should contribute troops to Iraq and our position has been that if were are requested to do so by the Iraqis, we will consider it and we will support the Iraqis one hundred and ten percent. But at the same time, we believe that Iraq’s neighbors should not participate in that form of support because every country has its own interests and has its own influence and desires within Iraq and therefore we should keep our agenda out of the Iraqi situation so Jordan has been exercising restrain in that form by saying that we have no right to interfere in Iraqi internal affairs and that should apply for all the neighbors. So none of the neighbors should try to influence the Iraqi political process in one way or another and that position has been consisted over the past two years. But what we would like to see in Iraq is a freely elected representative body that represents all sects and all parts of Iraq and that doesn’t encourage one sect of Iraq over another.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : Jordan believes that its own democratization should be part of a regional process. How do you see the integration of the democratic movement in Iran in this regional democratization?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: Well certainly, we want to see the whole region moving forward. We have taken in Jordan the Arab human development report which was presented in 2002. A document that identified four deficiencies in the Arab region and those were democracy, education, women’s rights, and economic freedoms. In this respect, this doesn’t just apply to Jordan or to the Arab world but also applies to other countries in the region as well, Iran included. In this respect, we have moved forward. We were the first country out of 22 to adopt the recommendations of this report which was published by the UNDP. We have taken their recommendations and started implementing them and in addressing all of those deficiencies. So this is when we are talking about democracy in our region. It is very important to focus on education. How do you educate people? And how do you invest in a future generation that understands democratic values and subscribes to them. And a question that we ask in our region is we democratic at home? Are we democratic at work? Are we living a democratic life in exercising our rights and respecting the rights of others in society and in all of its aspects? And I think here, Jordan has had a democracy for many years, it has halted between the year 58 and 89. But in our 10th parliament and since, so over the past 15 years, we have had an accelerated reform process that is socioeconomic but also political. We have seen the struggles of restating a democratic process that comes with its challenges but it is important to have a dialogue within where people can talk about their different points of view and that their various points of view would be accepted and respected. They don’t have to be agreed with but at least to be able to voice different ideas within society. This is a healthy environment.

VOICE OF AMERICA: : How would Jordan perceive a nuclear Iran?

AMBASSADOR KAWAR: Jordan has taken the position that the whole Middle East region should be free of weapons of mass destruction and specifically nuclear weapons. So therefore, Jordan takes this issue very seriously because we see the escalation that this could lead to. Once one country has nuclear weapons there will be a race of who is going to have a bigger and larger weapon and then there will be a fear that those weapons will be used at one point and that is going to be disastrous on a massive scale and this is something that we try to avoid in our region. We believe in our region and we should spend less on military and invest more in our economies and in our societies. I’m looking at Jordan’s economy over the past two, three years and specifically in 2004 in the first 6 months we have had economic growth of 7.2%. In the first 3 months, it was 7.4%. This is unprecedented for Jordan and for the region and it is through such growth, investing in the economy rather than focusing on weapons that we can build a society that can see a positive future and doesn’t just seek to immigrate to other countries.

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