Arab countries will carry out political reforms at their own pace and not be lectured on them, leaders said on Tuesday. "Just as we refrain from giving lessons to others, we will not tolerate being told what to do. No one, from the Arab world or anywhere else, shall impose their views on us," Moroccan King Mohammed said in a speech to fellow Arab leaders. Monarchs and presidents - many in power for decades - met on Algeria's coast to discuss relaunching a fledging Middle East peace plan and also how to modernise government.
In Tunis last year, the Arab leaders promised to promote democracy, expand popular participation in politics and public affairs, reinforce women's rights and expand civil society.
Since the 1960s, neither in the 21 Arab League states nor in the Palestinian territories has any ruler lost power through an election.
The doyen is Muammar Gaddafi, who is in his 36th year in power after leading a military coup in 1969. Others have led their countries unchallenged since the 1970s and 1980s.
"The Arab world has shown that it is engaging itself on the path to reform," said the European Union's foreign affairs chief Javier Solana, spelling out that the region was moving in the right direction on better governance, progressively transparent elections, and the rights of women.
Washington says it sees a fresh wave of reform in the Middle East after the US-led invasion of Iraq but some Arab analysts say it is hard to detect much change.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took office through elections in January, succeeding his mentor and ally Yasser Arafat, who died in November.
In Iraq, the occupation led to elections in January too, but a fight for power has meant a government has yet to be formed. It was the US invasion in 2003 that removed President Saddam Hussein, who had ruled Iraq with an iron fist since the 1970s.
Buoyed by a 2004 re-election considered the most democratic in Algeria's history, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika offered some advice.
"We recognise that all societies, especially Arab societies, have no alternative but reform," he told fellow leaders.
"But... we know the different circumstances from one country to another. Realism dictates understanding that each party will resort to the most effective and the most rational approaches, which they see fit to carry out these reforms," he said.
North Africa, an ally in the US war on Islamic militants, has won praise from US President George W. Bush for pushing through reforms on women's rights, which are limited in many parts of the Arab world. Again Arab governments fell back on local cultural traditions as a reason for slow progress towards democracy.
"We remain jealously attached to our specificities, which must not be imposed on others, nor get lost in the cultures of others," Bouteflika said.
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