speeches

CNN–TURK  Interview
U.S. Ambassador Edelman
Moroccan Ambassador Zaggour
Moderator/Semih Idiz

December 9, 2004

Moderator: Ambassador Edelman if I may start with you, the Forum for the Future will be a unique gathering of nations, and it will take place at a time of heightened suspicions about U.S. intentions in the region. This is a fact of which you are well aware. These suspicions increased when the Broader Middle East concept came out in the first place. What does your country hope will come out of this meeting, and how do you expect to overcome these suspicions that do exist? 

Ambassador Edelman: Well Semih Bey, first thank you very much for having me and Ambassador Zagour, my Moroccan colleague, here this morning.  Morocco, of course, is the host of the meeting in Rabat, and I hope Ambassador Zagour will be able to expand on some of what I say and provide his own view of this.  From the U.S. point of view, the Broader Middle East Initiative is an effort to build a supportive international structure for the calls for reform that have issued from the broader Middle East region.  These calls have been articulated both by representatives of civil society and governments in the region.  They were in the Sana’a Declaration last January after the conference that took place there, the Alexandria Library Declaration in March, the Arab Business Council Declaration, and then, of course, the Arab League Declaration from the Arab League meeting in Tunis.  The focus is to see what can be done to support democratization, the spread of literacy, better regional financing flows, entrepreneurship, and investment opportunities in the region to deal with both the economic and political reform requirements of the region. So it is very much driven by what the region’s needs are, and the desire of the United States, the G-8, and other partner countries, including Turkey, to promote that process. 

Moderator:  Ambassador Zagour, if I can turn to you.  You are the host country in this, and Turkey is a country that is an Islamic country but with a secular system. It has a parliamentary democracy, and it has a market economy.  These are the sort of things that some of these countries will be aiming for.  Can Turkey be a model within this context for the countries that are involved in this meeting? 

Ambassador Zagour:  Sure. Turkey certainly has an important role to play in the implementation of the principles contained in the Sea Island initiative and the partnership between the G-8 countries and the region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa. Turkey, as you said, has a long experience of democratic practice, and has a strategic geographical position in the region.  Turkey has many other assets that it can use to play this important role that is expected from Turkey. 

Moderator:  Does Turkey’s EU perspective, which is so current today and is the topic of the day, bring a new dimension to this effort given that Turkey may one day be an Islamic country that is also a European Union member? 

Ambassador Edelman:  We certainly hope so.  The European Union and the United States have been working closely together in this endeavor along with countries in the region like Morocco.  I think Morocco is a very good example of a country that has begun to initiate its own reform process quite successfully, and therefore a very appropriate country to host this meeting in Rabat.  Turkey’s reform experience of the last few years as well is clearly relevant.  Turkey has, as Ambassador Zagour said, a long democratic history, but also a recent experience of reform as well.  That reform experience is, as you know, tied to the process of EU accession. So it seems to me that all of these things fit together, and that this is an extremely important project for the region, for the transatlantic relationship, because it’s one on which the European Union, the United States, as well as the partner countries in the region agree.  

Moderator:  Of course, it’s an important regional project.  But when we look at the list of invitees, we see some notable absences.  For example, I do not see Sudan and I do not see Israel.  Can regional peace and stability and economic prosperity really be achieved by keeping certain countries out, or should everybody should be in this process regardless of what problems they may have among themselves? 

Ambassador Zagour:  I think the hope of the Broader Middle East and North African countries, and also the hope of the G-8 countries, is that all countries can participate in the initiative and the activities of the Forum for the Future.  Now we have to make do with what we have.  Sudan and Israel now have a particular position in the current international context within the region of the Middle East and North Africa, and we hope that the issues that prevent the participation of these two countries in this initiative will disappear very quickly, and that the Israel-Arab conflict will be settled as quickly as possible.  We also hope that the situation in Sudan – in Darfur -- will be clarified and settled with the help of international organizations, the United Nations and some other countries. We hope that these problems disappear from the scene in the region so that Israel and Sudan can participate in this initiative and in the partnership that will be created by this initiative. 

Moderator:  Now, a topic that seems to be missing in this forum is the question of terrorism.  Is this because there are differences of opinion here?  For example, it is well known that Turkey feels that the United States is applying maximum pressure against Islamic terrorism, but is perhaps a little soft on the PKK in northern Iraq.  Similarly, many Arabs may not see Hamas, Hezbollah or the insurgency in Fellujah as a fight against terrorism.  Is this the reason why terrorism was not put on the agenda here?  Or is it not relevant to the subject in hand? 

Ambassador Edelman:  I think it is relevant to the subject in hand, but not necessarily a subject that is appropriate to be discussed in this particular forum.  It is relevant to the degree to which the issues that are being dealt with in the Forum for the Future have to do with those things that were identified by the various Arab human development reports as deficits in the region -- a knowledge deficit, a freedom deficit, a gender equality deficit -- and are aimed to deal as well with some of the economic obstacles to progress in the region.  Clearly, the absence of freedom, the absence of hope, the absence of economic development are the breeding ground of terrorism.  So the degree to which we, along with the other G-8 countries, the other partner countries, but most of all the countries from the region are able to address those issues and help countries move forward on a path of reform, both political and economic, that gives hope to people and more opportunity to diminish the pool from which terrorists recruit the disheartened and the hopeless. 

Moderator:  Ambassador Zagour, many in the West feel, wrongly, I think, that Islam is not compatible with democracy and human rights and the values that the West considers important.  Of course, Turkey proves that this is not the case necessarily. What is your feeling about this?  There is a deficit of democracy and human rights in the Islamic world.  Why is this?  Is Islam really incompatible with these values?  

Ambassador Zagour: As you have said, Turkey is an example of the fact that western countries or people who feel this antagonism between Islam and democracy are wrong.  I think there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy.  The Koran contains some very important principles of democracy and human rights, but its application and its interpretation change and differ from one country to another.  But there is no incompatibility at all between Islam and democracy.  Morocco also is a country in which modernity and traditional society live together harmoniously.  We have no problem in Morocco between tradition and modernity.  There are some other countries in the Arab world, and in the Islamic world in general, that also have experiences like the Moroccan one or the Turkish one.  These experiences have ups and downs, of course, but in general I don’t see any incompatibility between Islam and democracy. 

Moderator:  Ambassador Edelman, there are important members of the Bush Administration now who are admitting that there was a certain element of underestimation as to what was going on in Iraq.  Will this forum in Rabat also be a forum for America to listen perhaps a little more to the Islamic world, to understand the sensitivities in the Islamic world, and also to understand the kind of sensitivities that exist on the question of Israel?  As you know, there has been a feeling in the Islamic world that the Americans are not even-handed on this issue. 

Ambassador Edelman:  I think, first of all, the forum will present a great opportunity for Secretary Powell to hear a variety of views from both representatives of the region and also the partner countries.  He has had other opportunities to do that, and we will continue to do that.  It is important to listen, I agree very much.  We need to listen to our friends and our allies and learn from their experience.  I think we have to recognize that this activity, the Forum for the Future, is not going to be an alternative to the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis.  That has to go on in its own way, but the ups and downs of the peace process should not be seen as an obstacle to pursuing the reform that people in the region crave.  If we were able to solve the Palestinian–Israeli problem tomorrow -- which is a bit of an optimistic view -- the next day the problems that the Forum for the Future is addressing -- the democracy deficit, the gender equality deficit, the knowledge deficit -- would still be there and still need to be addressed.  On the Palestinian–Israeli front, I’m a little bit hopeful.  Secretary Bill Burns, the Assistant Secretary for Middle East Affairs, yesterday announced 20 million dollars from the United States in direct budget support to the Palestinian Authority to help them get through the next few weeks and months of the election process.  There will be an election in the Palestinian territories.  That’s a very, very positive thing.  There has been an election in Afghanistan in the last two months.  That was a very powerful example of the point that Ambassador Zagour was just making in answer to your earlier question, that there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy.  When people are given an opportunity to vote, they will brave all sorts of difficulties in order to exercise that right.  I think we will see examples both in the Palestinian territories and in Iraq at the end of January, where people will once again be showing their desire to have a say and to have some ownership of their own future. 

Moderator:  Well I thank you Ambassador Edelman and Ambassador Zagour.  We will, of course, be following the Rabat Summit with great interest.