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UNITED NATIONS, June 25: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned on Tuesday that US President George W. Bush’s call for Palestinian elections could backfire by producing a more hardline leadership than was now in charge.
Annan said there were also key gaps in the Bush plan that Washington’s international partners must now help fill in, including what to do while awaiting the new Palestinian leadership that Bush has demanded.
“There’s been a call for a new Palestinian leadership. What happens between now and until a new leadership exists? Do we work with the government that we have, or do we create a vacuum?” Annan told reporters as he entered U.N. headquarters.
The secretary-general, who has played a key role in Middle East diplomacy in recent months, said now was not the best time for Palestinian elections.
If they went ahead, newly elected leaders would not necessarily ease the way to a realization of Bush’s vision of a Palestinian state living side by side with a secure Israel, he cautioned.
“The time for the elections is not optimal. You could find yourself in a situation that the radicals are the ones that get elected, and it would be the result of a democratic process, and we have to accept that,” he said.
Bush, setting out his long-awaited vision of a path to a Middle East peace on Monday, made it clear he had written off Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as part of any peace accord, saying Palestinians must pick new leaders “not compromised by terror” to attain their cherished goal of statehood alongside a secure Israel.
Annan reiterated his view that the choice of Palestinian leaders was solely for the Palestinian people to decide. “They elected Arafat,” he said. “They are planning new elections and let them elect their own leaders.”
POLITICAL REFORMS: Arafat has promised political reforms and new elections, but has set no timetable.
Annan cited several gaps in the Bush plan “that one would need to think through and to clarify” and said he expected these matters to be addressed soon at a meeting of the so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
“We need to sit down and see how one can implement this plan, how one can operationalize it with specific steps and timelines as to how this can be done,” Annan said.
The Quartet has been meeting on a regular basis to coordinate international policy on the volatile region, but Annan did not say when it next planned to meet.
Annan reeled off a series of questions he said the plan had left unanswered.
“How do we operationalize it? Which comes first? Under what circumstances can one hold elections in the West Bank?” he asked. “Will Israel’s withdrawal to the 2000 lines be prerequisite for elections? Can you hold elections in the current atmosphere?”—Reuters
