US-backed reform forum opens in UAE amid doubts

A US-backed forum aimed at promoting democracy in the Middle East opened in Abu Dhabi on Sunday amid doubts among Arab states about the validity of the four-year-old initiative. "Reform in the Middle East is above all a national demand," the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, told the Fifth Forum for the Future, co-chaired by his country and Japan.
"It is a necessity for the present and the future," he told the ministerial meeting. But "frustration" in the region as a result of the deadlocked Middle East peace process, and problems of "poverty, illiteracy, extremism and unemployment are factors which are not conducive to a prosperous future."
Japanese State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Seiko Hashimoto called for co-operation between the Group of Eight leading industrial nations and Arab states, saying dialogue within the forum is "extremely important." "We have to understand each other," she told the meeting attended by several G8 and Arab countries.
Japan holds the G8's rotating presidency. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is representing the United States at the meeting, which will end later Sunday.
The meeting is the fifth since the forum was launched by US President George W. Bush in 2004 at a time when Washington was professing high aspirations for democratic reform in the Arab world following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein.
It aimed to promote political, social and economic reforms in the Middle East and North Africa and had the backing of the G8 nations-Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. Morocco hosted the first edition, followed by Bahrain the year after and Jordan in 2006. The 2007 events took place in both Germany and Yemen.
Political reform in the Arab world and the civil society's role in the region's development top the agenda of the meeting, which is also attended by civil society representatives.
But some activists have voiced doubts about the usefulness of the forum, which has made little difference since it was launched and is now being held in the twilight of the Bush administration.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi also expressed the Arab governments' resistance to any outside pressure for reform. "Any reform which is imposed and not accepted by the states and peoples of the region is doomed," he said at the opening session. Echoing his view, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told reporters that "the future of the region must be shaped and decided by its people without external tutelage."