TUNIS, 24 May 2004 — Arab leaders adopted an unprecedented joint pledge here yesterday to promote political reform and fight terrorism, while also seeking international support to end conflicts in the volatile region.
The leaders, expected to present the pledge to a G-8 summit next month, also condemned attacks on “civilians without discrimination,” referring to both Israelis and Palestinians.
The 13-point reform document approved yesterday said Arab leaders were determined to pursue and intensify the process of political, economic, social and educational reform, but according to their own national and cultural requirements, their religious values and their own “possibilities.” Other points called for fighting terrorism and expanding the bases of democracy and promoting human rights, as well as women’s rights.
In its preamble, the document links reforms to a just settlement of the conflicts facing the region, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Now we have the first collective government commitment to reform,” an Arab minister attending the summit said.
“The consensus that emerged was very good given the political and social scene in the Arab world,” the minister said.
The rescheduled two-day summit, delayed for eight weeks after Tunisia abruptly canceled it amid a row over reform proposals, opened amid popular Arab rage over the abuse of Iraqis at US-run prisons in Iraq and deadly Israeli military raids in the Gaza Strip.
The summit was marred on its opening day when Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi walked out.
However, the Libyan delegation appeared to have approved the reform document.
No formal mandate was given to Egypt and other Arab countries to discuss the reform plan with the international community because of opposition from Syria, delegates said.
However, at next month’s G-8 summit of the world’s leading industrialized nations plus Russia in the US state of Georgia, representatives of Arab countries will discuss the plan with the international community.
Washington wants to use the G-8 summit to launch the Greater Middle East Initiative which aims to boost cooperation among the United States, G-8, European Union and NATO in backing political and economic reform in the Arab and Muslim countries.
Washington sees such reforms as essential to easing the political frustration blamed for fostering anti-American feelings.
However, the Arab minister who asked not to be named said “the Arabs managed to agree on this resolution in order to undercut any chance by the G-8 to issue their own statement demanding reform.”
Unlike previous summits since the Arab League’s creation in 1945, Arab leaders for the first time declared their commitment to implement the organization’s decisions, which have been criticized in the past as ineffective and lacking the mechanism for enforcement. “We are dead serious about the implementation,” Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahya of host Tunisia stressed at a news conference. The leaders agreed to the document entitled “Pledge of Accord and Solidarity,” which commits them to implementing Arab League decisions “to guarantee a better future for the Arab countries and their peoples and to avoid the ordeals of sedition, division and infighting.”
