SEA ISLAND, Ga. — They didn’t exactly kiss and make up under the palm trees, but the 2004 Group of Eight summit at an American beach resort went some way toward finally soothing the US-European rift over the war in Iraq.
Gone were the frosty handshakes of last year’s summit in France, to be replaced by warm smiles and pats on the back.
Instead of harping back to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the major powers’ leaders looked forward, endorsing a United Nations resolution on Iraq’s future and backing a US plan for promoting reform in the Middle East.
“The Sea Island Summit has crystallized a trend over the past two months during which European and American governments have come increasingly together around a common set of objectives,” said one senior US administration official.
“I think it has been a remarkably productive summit and a remarkably productive period in US-European relations,” he added, declining to be named.
However, the Sea Island sun didn’t melt away all the storm clouds. Important divisions remain — divisions that will probably remain for as long as US President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac stay in office.
At the meetings, France opposed US and British efforts to give NATO a role in Iraq and, along with Germany and Russia, refused once more to countenance the idea of sending troops to help the country’s rocky transition to stability.
Paris and Moscow also refused to sign up to a proposal to slash 80 percent of Iraq’s debt, which Washington says is vital if the country is to recover swiftly from years of war and sanctions. France has suggested just a 50 percent cut.
“Beneath the surface I don’t detect a great deal of progress on the central issues that continue to divide the United States and Europe,” said Charles Kupchan, an international relations expert at Georgetown University in Washington.
But to expect harmony on every issue just months after the meltdown in relations over Iraq is perhaps unrealistic, and the smiling faces at Sea Island suggest the allies have at least agreed to disagree in a more convivial fashion.
“What we both have learnt from this conflict is that friends can have different views on important questions without that being a problem for the partnership in the long run,” said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
“I am very happy with the way things have developed,” he told a group of reporters.
EU and US officials said the leaders all realized that despite past unhappiness, nothing would be gained by carrying on bickering over Iraq and that it was in everyone’s interests to secure peace in the region.
“We are all in this together. Not everyone is happy about how we got here, but that belongs to history. The important thing is that everyone agrees we must move forward together,” said an Italian diplomat who declined to be named.
US and European leaders will have plenty more opportunities to get together in the days ahead, with Bush due to appear at an EU summit in Ireland later this month followed swiftly by a NATO summit in Turkey.
Iraq will undoubtedly loom large over both meetings but the Sea Island gathering showed that more than just the war separates the United States and some of Europe.
Chirac used the summit to criticize the US trade and budget deficits, while the United States accused Europe of not doing enough to revive its crawling economy.
European officials also remain skeptical about Washington’s commitment to overseeing a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, US officials stressed that Washington was now listening to the concerns of its allies, drawing a line under what many saw as a troubling period of US “unilateralism.”
“This is known as diplomacy, an art so forgotten as to be exotic and even radical,” one senior US advisor said.
