Middle East Economic Survey
VOL. XLVII
No 48
The Political Scene (29 November 2004)
The Sharm al-Shaikh international conference on Iraq managed to agree that elections are a good idea. The Syrians are apparently willing to reopen peace talks with Israel unconditionally. After agreeing with the Europeans to halt uranium enrichment activities, the Iranians threw a last-minute spanner in the works before the 25 November IAEA board meeting.
The Sharm al-Shaikh Conference
The international conference on Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Shaikh opened on 22 November with a meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq and its neighbors – Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – who were joined the next day by the foreign ministers of Algeria, Bahrain, the UK, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Tunisia and the US, as well as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Given the wide range of opinion present, it was no surprise that the final communiqué – worked out well in advance – was a lowest-common-denominator affair. The easy part was agreeing that elections in Iraq are a good idea, and accordingly the ministers “encourage the Interim Government of Iraq to convene in Iraq, at the earliest date, before the general elections, representatives of the Iraqi political spectrum and civil society in order to share with them the results of the Sharm al-Shaikh meeting, so as to advance nation-building and national reconciliation with a view to encouraging broader participation in the general elections…to encourage the Interim Government of Iraq to continue the political process by holding general elections before the end of January 2005.” On the much trickier question of the current violence in Iraq, the ministers “condemn all acts of terrorism
in Iraq” without defining what they mean and “call on all parties to avoid excessive use of force and to exercise maximum self-restraint to avoid violence inflicted on civilians.” And as far as concerns the US/coalition presence in Iraq – which France, amongst others, sees as part of the problem rather than the solution – the communiqué notes that “the mandate of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq is not open ended; it will expire in accordance with paragraphs 4 and 12 of UNSCR 1546” (ie upon completion of the political process by 31 December 2005). So if what the Americans and the interim Iraqi government were after in Sharm al-Shaikh was international endorsement of their schedule for introducing democracy into Iraq, the conference can be counted a success, although that is unlikely to carry much weight with the insurgents who are trying to prevent elections being held on schedule on 30 January. Indeed, the only tangible result of the meeting was the announcement that the interior ministers of Iraq and its neighbors are to attend a conference in Tehran on 30 November where, according to Iranian official Javad Zarif on 22 November, “we hope to be able to exchange views and coordinate our positions in order to help Iraq.” On the same day, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari indicated more specifically that Iraq intended to ask Iran and Turkey for border security measures similar to those agreed with Syria, saying that “we hope we will do such a thing similar to what we have done with Syria with Turkey soon…with the Iranians actually we need such an arrangement.”
Stirrings On The Syrian Front
When UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said after meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad on 24 November that “President Asad has reiterated to me today that he has an outstretched hand to his Israeli counterparts and that he is willing to go to the table without conditions,” it was – potentially, at least – something of a breakthrough, since previously the Syrians had insisted that peace talks should resume from the relatively advanced stage at which they were broken off in 2000. However, Mr Roed-Larsen’s remarks were swiftly dismissed as “a propaganda maneuver” by a “senior official” at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, who added that “the Syrians are reacting because they have their backs to the wall after (US) sanctions and the UN vote on Lebanon.” To a certain extent that may be true, but it may also not be the whole truth, since as the momentum builds behind the campaign to resume negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel in the wake of Yasir ΄Arafat’s death, there are also signs of stirrings on the Syrian front. In Syria’s case, however, any resuscitation of the dormant peace talks will depend on a complicated package of trade-offs that includes Syrian cooperation over Iraq, US sanctions on Damascus and Syria’s presence and role in Lebanon.
Iran’s Last Minute Spanner In The Works
Just when it looked as if the EU 3 – Britain, France and Germany – had finally nailed down an agreement with Iran involving a halt to all the Iranians’ uranium enrichment activities ahead of the 25 November board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Iranians once again came up with a last-minute wrinkle that put the whole deal in jeopardy. After Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi told CNN on 22 November that “today the whole enrichment process has been suspended” and the IAEA sent in inspectors to verify the suspension, IAEA head Muhammad al-Baradi΄i said that “I think pretty much everything has come to a halt right now” and even US President George Bush allowed that “it looks like there is some progress,” although he added that “to determine whether or not the progress is real there must be verification.” However, that was apparently far too simple for the Iranians, who on 24 November asked the IAEA to exempt from the agreement some 20 centrifuges used for uranium enrichment, a request described by an unnamed European diplomat as “not acceptable.” Why the Iranians decided to throw this last-minute spanner in the works is anybody’s guess, since according to experts 20 centrifuges is an insignificant number as far as producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons is concerned. But whatever their reasons, it meant that at MEES press time on 26 November, the whole issue of Iran’s nuclear activities and the IAEA’s response was once again up in the air after seemingly being resolved.
Charles Snow