G8 Foreign Ministers Focus on Middle East
06/23/2005
LONDON (AP) - The Middle East peace process, Iran’s nuclear program and tackling opium production in Afghanistan topped the agenda at a meeting of G8 foreign ministers Thursday, officials said.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will host the daylong summit in London that brings together his counterparts from the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany and Italy.
On the sidelines, representatives of the so-called Quartet that drafted the road map to peace in the Middle East - the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia - will discuss Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah will join the G8 meeting for talks on how to stem the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan.
That country last year supplied more than 90 percent of the world’s opium, the raw material for heroin, sparking warnings that Afghanistan was turning into a narco-state just three years after the fall of the Taliban.
A senior British official, briefing reporters in advance of the talks, said Britain would urge the other G8 members to make a long-term commitment to helping Afghanistan.
In return, the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai would have to make progress on good governance, building institutions, tackling corruption and improving human rights, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Britain is working closely with Karzai’s government to tackle the narcotics problem. A five-point plan developed in the latter half of 2004 includes promotion of alternative crops for poppy farmers, eradication and interdiction of heroin labs and storage facilities.
The plan appears to be failing, however. Earlier this year a U.S. report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a record of more than 510,000 acres, more than three times the figure for 2003.
The foreign ministers will also focus on efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program. The clerical regime in Tehran insists the program is peaceful and has threatened to resume its suspended uranium-enrichment program.
Uranium enriched to low levels can be used as fuel in nuclear reactors to generate electricity, but further enrichment makes it suitable for a nuclear bomb. The United States, and Britain, France and Germany who are spearheading the diplomatic effort on behalf of the European Union, don’t want Iran to have its own nuclear fuel cycle.
The Quartet meeting - to be attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov - comes at a sensitive time.
Israel plans to withdraw from all 21 Jewish settlements on the Gaza Strip and four of the 120 in the West Bank.
The Quartet hopes the withdrawal will revitalize the stalled road map, which envisages Israelis and Palestinians living peacefully side-by-side in separate states.
There are fears, however, that the withdrawal could lead to an escalation of violence if Palestinians fire at settlers leaving their homes in the coastal strip or at security forces carrying out the mass evacuation.
Former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, who is now the Quartet’s special envoy for Gaza disengagement, will also attend the G8 meeting Thursday. The British official said Straw would also raise Britain’s proposal for an international arms trade treaty, but stressed that discussions were at a very early stage.