EDITORIAL: EU out of Mideast peace deal?
By MIDDLE EAST TIMES
Published: November 30, 2007
EDITORIAL: One important but little-noticed feature of the Annapolis talks was that the Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations no longer seems to have much of a role. The Americans have taken over.
"The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map," says the joint Israeli-Palestinian document committing them to pursue a peace deal by the end of next year. Note that potent word, "judge."”And note also that while excluding the Russians may be difficult, and excluding the U.N. may be foolish, excluding the EU could carry serious financial consequences.
The EU has long been the main financial supporter for the Palestinians. In 2007, the EU and its 27 member nations gave almost $1.5 billion in mostly humanitarian aid. To help make the Annapolis process work, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the EU should be prepared to raise another $500 million for job-creation projects. But will it?
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's external relations commissioner and Javier Solana, the EU security affairs chief suggest that future EU aid could also be made available for the Palestinian police force and to reform the Palestinians' health, education, and judicial systems. But there are no guarantees.
The EU'’s money is essential. Former British premier Tony Blair, who represented the Quartet at Annapolis, stressed at a press briefing in Jerusalem: "Without hope of prosperity, rising living standards, and an economic stake in the future for ordinary Palestinians, the politics will never succeed."
The effective sidelining of the Europeans has been noticed. Leila Shahid, the Palestinians' representative in Europe, expressed regret Wednesday that the EU had "dropped out" of the Middle East process "at a time when the Americans are coming back."
There are ominous signs that a kind of compassion fatigue is developing in the EU, after paying so much for so long for so little, and seeing Israeli bombs or Israeli border delays undermine the development it has tried to fund.
"The only role the EU seems to be able to play is that of a milking cow and a builder of projects,"” notes Barah Mikail of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris. "When the EU builds these projects and Israel destroys them, the EU never takes a firm stance condemning the destruction, so it does not win any respect," he said.
Moreover, the EU has other concerns beyond the Middle East. Between now and Christmas, EU troops could be facing violence in Kosovo (where it has 15,000 soldiers) and in Lebanon (where 8,000 EU troops are the core of the U.N. peace force). It is also poised to send another 4,000 troops to Chad to support the U.N. mission in the neighboring Darfur province of Sudan. Will it have the cash and political will to keep paying the bills in the Middle East, when it has no role in the policy?
http://www.metimes.com/Editorial/2007/11/30/editorial_eu_out_of_mideast_peace_deal/1599/
Abbas says Annapolis conference achieved its goal
Published: December 01, 2007
CAIRO (AFP) Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Saturday that this week's Middle East peace conference in the United States met its goal of jumpstarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
"The main goal of the Annapolis conference was to launch negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis and this is in fact what happened," Abbas told reporters in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"Some had been under the illusion that the negotiations would actually start in (Annapolis) or that a deal would be struck," he said.
At the meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert formally restarted negotiations after a seven-year freeze in the peace process, aiming to conclude a comprehensive agreement by the end of 2008.
Abbas said a steering committee would be set up that would begin negotiations on December 12 including on the core issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei will head the Palestinian negotiating team, Abbas said.
http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2007/12/01/abbas_says_annapolis_conference_achieved_its_goal/afp/
Mideast peace conference follow-up meetings in Moscow and Paris: Abbas
The Associated Press
Published: December 1, 2007
CAIRO, Egypt: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that there will be meetings in Moscow and Paris to follow up on the Mideast peace conference in Annapolis.
Abbas gave his comments after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. He also said that a special negotiating team led by former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, will handle negotiations with Israelis, which is due to launch Dec. 12.
"There was this myth that there were talks or a deal," in the U.S.-brokered Mideast summit in Annapolis, Abbas said. "The purpose of Annapolis meeting was to launch talks without going into details."
"There will be two stations after Annapolis: one in Paris and the second in Moscow where there will be another conference to review what the negotiations have achieved," he added, without elaborating.
Abbas did not say whether the Moscow meeting would focus on the Syrian-Israeli track as has been widely speculated.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/01/africa/ME-GEN-Mideast-Palestinians.php
US anger as Russia pulls out of arms treaty
By Stephen Fidler and James Blitz in London
Published: December 1 2007 02:00 Last updated: December 1 2007 02:00
President Vladimir Putin signed a law yesterday suspending Russia's participation in a key post-cold war arms treaty, triggering an angry reaction from the US, which declared the move a "mistake".
In a significant new indication of the worsening diplomatic relationship between Moscow and Washington, Mr Putin personally ratified a law that means Moscow will suspend the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE) in a little under two weeks.
Western military experts believe the CFE, first signed in 1990, is a significant treaty that limits the number of battle tanks, heavy artillery, combat aircraft and attack helicopters deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia's Ural mountains.
It also contains a significant array of confidence-building measures, requiring all signatories to give other states advance notice of troop movements and missile launches.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3eb8ce68-9fb3-11dc-8031-0000779fd2ac.html
Bhutto warns of foreign intervention if militancy not curbed
Page 1 of 2 View as a single page 9:13AM Monday December 03, 2007
By Riaz Khan
PESHAWAR - Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said on Sunday she would use economic as well as military means to defuse Pakistan's pro-Taleban insurgency, and warned that "foreign forces" could invade unless the government curbs spreading militancy.
Bhutto was speaking to journalists in Pakistan's troubled northwest, where she launched her campaign this weekend for January 8 parliamentary elections. She planned key talks Monday with another opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, who is urging a boycott of the vote.
Bhutto also raised the spectre of militants moving on the capital, Islamabad, and gaining control of a crucial nuclear installation - widely seen as an unlikely scenario.
Pasted from <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10479756>
EDITORIAL: Pakistan's autocracy challenged
By MIDDLE EAST TIMES
Published: November 30, 2007
EDITORIAL: As Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf abandons his military façade yet maintains military rule, international critics accuse him of strategically stalling the Pakistani democratic process. With a tumultuous history that encompasses six generations of military misrule, repeated suspension of constitutional rights and internal instability, Pakistan seems an unlikely candidate for a flourishing civil society.
But recent events have proven otherwise. As Musharraf struggles to retain control over a fragmented state, the increasing number of Pakistanis protesting unconstitutional rule is a hopeful indication of the sort of political participation central to democracy.
Instead of accepting cooperation with the largely illegitimate military regime, prominent members of the judicial system, including chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, have been dismissed, arrested or imprisoned by Musharraf. By doing so, the president demonstrated not only a continued disregard for the Pakistani constitution, but also a growing fear of a multitude of opposition groups.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's second return to the country – in defiance of exile imposed once again by Musharraf – indicate the tenacity of the opposition to military rule and contributes to a veritable foundation of grassroots democracy in Pakistan.
Although martial law has been imposed before, tolerance of such flagrant disregard for public opinion is now at its nadir.
Chaudhry's repeated dismissal and Bhutto's return highlight not only the inconsistencies of Musharraf's policies but also that the fear so necessary to run an illegitimate state is no longer present among the people or his political rivals.
Now that Musharraf has become a general without an army, both literally and figuratively, the state is set for opposition groups to re-rout power to the people in an attempt to establish the representative government that Pakistan has long deserved.
http://www.metimes.com/Editorial/2007/11/30/editorial_pakistans_autocracy_challenged/5565/
