AMMAN, 8 June 2004 — Arab reform efforts will fail if they are imposed from outside and fail to address the Middle East conflict, Jordan’s King Abdallah II warned in an AFP interview yesterday. The king was speaking before joining a summit of the Group of Eight most industrialized nations in Sea Island, Georgia, today at which Washington wants to push its own Greater Middle East Initiative for reform in Arab and Muslim countries.
“Any reform process should emerge from within — ownership of the process of reform is vital for its success — and initiatives seen as imposed from the outside will only hurt the efforts of genuine reformers in our region,” King Abdallah said.
“Reform cannot be viewed in isolation of the central question looming heavy on the region and that is the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he said on the eve of his trip to the United States. The king insisted that Western efforts to help shore up political and economic reform should not be seen as a blow to Islam.
“Any initiative to help or support the reform process by the international community should not be perceived as a movement against Islam, nor as a clash of civilizations, rather as a coalition of civilizations working for comprehensive development and progress and against ignorance and terrorism,” he said.
The king said these are the messages he will carry to the summit, which he will be one of the few Arab leaders to attend along with Bahrain’s King Hamad, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Iraq’s first post-Saddam President Sheikh Ghazi Al-Yawar.
Washington’s plan to push for democratic reform in Arab and Muslim nations from North Africa to Afghanistan has triggered Arab and European criticism and prompted the United States to revise its scheme.
Arab nations, meanwhile, adopted their own reform program at a summit in Tunis last month, pledging change but each at its own pace. Abdallah reiterated that this was the goal. “It is important to stress that a statement of principles on reform and a plan of action to implement these reforms are not quite the same. A commitment to common principles is acceptable, but a one-blue-print-for-all is not,” he said.
He explained that the reform program adopted in Tunis was based “on Arab needs and on revisions of many earlier ideas put forward by the West and the United States”, taking into consideration “each state’s particularities”.
According to the king, what emerged in Tunis helped narrow the gap between Arab views and those of the West. “The gap between these ideas has been largely bridged. What remains is to deal with Arabs (countries), their issues and their particularities with dialogue and understanding,” he said.
“This dialogue is important and its success is key in achieving the reform and progress we all are working towards,” Abdallah said. Iraq is expected to be a central topic at the G-8 summit and Abdallah hoped that the United Nations, which contributed to the formation of a new government in Baghdad ahead of the June 30 transition, will continue to play a key role.
“What is important for us now is to move forward toward elections next year, and it is important for the United Nations to play a central role in helping prepare for elections and to contribute to supervising them,” the king said.
He also insisted on the future unity of Iraq that would guarantee “the rights of the minority and not only the majority” — a clear reference to the fragile balance between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. “We hope that this will be done, and that those overseeing the elections will ensure it is done,” he said.
Finally, King Abdallah said Jordan was “willing to train Palestinian police and security forces” as part of overall efforts to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in line with the internationally-backed road map for peace.
