President Jacques Chirac on Thurs-day cautioned US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair over their campaign for the democratization of the Middle East.
Chirac, in a speech in London during a two-day visit to Britain for celebrations marking the centenary of the Entente Cordiale Treaty, which laid the foundations for a permanent alliance between the two countries, said he supported reformers everywhere.
PHOTO: AP
"Yet we must avoid any confusion between democratization and Westernization," he said.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and Bush has irritated Arab leaders with his campaign for a speedy introduction of democracy in their countries. France is the most pro-Arab country in Europe.
The French president warned Bush and Blair that "although our memory is sometimes short, the peoples submitted to the West's domination in the past have not forgotten and are quick to see a resurgence of imperialism and colonialism in our actions."
In the speech, Chirac reiterated his view that Europe should form a bloc as a counterbalance to the US. He called for the revival of multilateralism, mainly through the UN, rather than a world based on the "logic of power," namely the US.
Earlier, at a joint press conference, Chirac and Blair attempted to bury their differences 18 months after relations between France and Britain were strained by the Iraq war.
Although there is still a gulf between the two over Iraq, with France keen to see a timetable for the withdrawal of US, British and other troops, Chirac and Blair concentrated on areas of cooperation.
Chirac, who had two hours of talks with Blair, said Iraq was the "one and only issue" over which the two countries disagreed.
"Who is right or wrong, history will tell," he said.
Chirac reiterated his view that the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq has made the world more dangerous.
"If you observe the way things are developing in the world in terms of security and the expansion of terrorism -- not just in the Middle East but throughout the world -- if you look at all that, you cannot say, and be credible, that the situation has significantly improved," he said.
Before the war in Iraq beganlast year, the Blair government accused France of poisoning the debate in the UN and, at one point, deliberately distorted a statement by Chirac about using the French veto in the Security Council.
But at the press conference both men were in an emollient mood.
"On the question of Iraq, I think the differences at the time of the conflict were well known. But both of us are now working under UN Resolution 1546, both of us want to see a stable and democratic Iraq. And both of us will do what we can to ensure that that happens," Blair said.
Chirac said he had been taken aback at media suggestions in the press of divisions between France and Britain.
"They do not reflect either my own beliefs -- and certainly not the British government's -- or our experience of Franco-British cooperation," he said.
He and Blair said they shared the same analysis of what needed to be done in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and on Africa and climate change, and emphasized that British and French soldiers were working side by side in Afghanistan.
Chirac has been pushing Britain to align itself more closely with Europe. But on Thursday he said the close, almost family, relationship between the US and Britain was helpful.
"The fact that the UK can be a friendly partner between the European Union and the United States is advantageous for Europe," he said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RSS