Salvage project

By Dina Ezzat

Visiting Paris on Monday and Tuesday, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa was originally scheduled to have one meeting with his French opposite number Hubert Vedrine. The two ministers met twice, however, for talks on the Egyptian-French initiative and their aides established a joint working group. After consultation with their respective presidents, Moussa went on to meet with President Jacques Chirac to whom he conveyed a message from President Hosni Mubarak.

"The message is that both Egypt and France should continue, in coordination with the US, to work to salvage the peace process," Moussa said.

However, this intensive diplomatic effort did not provide any clear-cut answer to the question whether the proposed conference, in which the US has so far displayed a marked lack of interest, would ever become reality. "We cannot say at this time whether the conference is going to materialise or not," a French diplomat said. "We cannot say whether it will take place soon, within weeks, or even this year. What can be said is that the idea is not going to be dropped. It will remain on the table."

Moussa and Vedrine boasted that the idea has advanced from being merely an "initiative" to the status of a full-fledged "project." But the technical details of when and where the conference might be held, as well as the form it may take, have still to be defined. The main point which was repeatedly stressed is that there is a pressing need for the proposed conference because of the continuing deadlock in regional peacemaking. "The peace process is in a very sensitive situation and something should be done about this," Moussa said.

"Certainly something has to be done, and time is very tight," said Ghasan Salame, director of research at the Paris-based National Centre for Scientific Research and professor at the Institute for Political Studies. He continued: "In ten months' time, in May 1999, the Oslo agreements will expire. This not only means that [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat can then declare his independent state, in accordance with the terms of the agreements, but, more alarmingly, it means that the legal concepts enshrined in these agreements will no longer have any force and that both sides will be free to do whatever they want."

According to Egyptian sources, what is needed now is an effort that would block any attempts at procrastination and counteract the Israeli government's lack of commitment to the peace process. "But it should be taken into consideration that there can be no going back on the principles of the Madrid peace conference and the terms established in the Oslo agreements," Moussa affirmed.

The tentative plan for the proposed conference is to bring together senior diplomats from some 30 countries with a direct interest in Middle East peace, excluding the parties immediately involved, to lay the groundwork for the next step and discuss possible political statements and actions. Then, the foreign ministers of the same countries would meet to push matters forward.

The participants would include the United States, Russia, Egypt, France and another member of the European Union. Other Arab countries would be present, such as Saudi Arabia and Morocco, as well as certain Latin American countries sympathetic to Arab rights, and certain Asian countries, particularly those who are helping to cover the costs of the peace process.

The proposed conference will have two principal tasks: to get Israel to realise that it will be internationally reprimanded for blocking the peace effort, and to work out practical ways for getting the peace process rolling again on the basis of the existing consensus on fundamentals. "These are not easy tasks, but we cannot leave the situation as it is now, particularly when there is plenty of evidence that Israel is not going to accept the US initiative for a 13.1 per cent redeployment from the West Bank," said a diplomatic source.

If these first stages went well, the conference would then invite the parties involved in the negotiations -- Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Israel -- to join them. But, said Vedrine, "there is no particular calendar" for the initiative, much less for the proposed conference itself. According to officials on both sides, priority is now being given to obtaining support for the proposed conference from as many countries as possible. Egypt and France would particularly like to see the US warming up to the idea. "We have no intention whatsoever of running counter to the US efforts but, at the same time, it is impossible to wait forever," commented Moussa. He explained that, through the upcoming UN General Assembly and the annual meeting of Arab foreign ministers in September, concerned officials will seek to obtain a positive follow-up to the proposal.

The Egyptian-French initiative was launched by the presidents of the two countries during Mubarak's visit to Paris last May.

"It is obvious that the French are very keen on doing something," Salame said. "They are worried that the deadlock in the peace process could ignite regional violence and religious fundamentalism and undermine the stability of friendly Arab regimes."

Moreover, in Salame's view, "the French don't want to let the US dominate the Middle East, for fear that Washington, with its strong military presence through both Israel and Turkey, might impose a Pax Americana on the entire region that would leave only very limited opportunities for commercial and military cooperation with France."

France believes that there is a sponsorship vacuum resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union and it wants to fill this vacuum with the assistance of other southern members of the European Union. "But the French are realistic and they know that they cannot ignore the Americans," Salame said.