Mediterranean countries vow to free Middle East region of WMDs

Deep divisions still slice through the region and its population of 800 million people, and surfaced during Sunday's summit, highlighting how hard it will be to parlay the meetings goodwill and words into real progress.

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Syria's president refused to shake the Israeli prime ministers hand, and Morocco's king snubbed the meeting attended by the president of rival Algeria.Â

 

However Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stole the show at the Paris summit and served notice that Damascus is central to solving problems in the Middle East. Assad also placed himself firmly at the centre of future peace moves.

 

Once banished for his "destabilizing" role in the Middle East, Assad, in a series of meetings over the weekend, resumed diplomatic ties with Lebanon and held indirect talks through Turkey with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

 

In his big return to the international stage, he helped ensure that French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for the Mediterranean summit was not undermined, as many had feared, by feuding among the Middle East neighbors.

 

The ceremonial inaugural summit at the lofty iron-and-glass Grand Palais in Paris sealed a new detente between Syria and Europe, with the Syrian and Israeli leaders sitting at the same table for the first time.

 

 

QUESTION MARKS OVER WMDS

"We dreamed about a Union for the Mediterranean, and now it is a reality," Sarkozy said in closing the summit in a palace abutting the River Seine. He called it an "extremely moving, very important moment."

 

In a final declaration, the nations represented at the summit - including Israel, Syria, the Palestinian Territories and countries across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa - agreed to "pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction."

 

The statement said that includes nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their delivery systems, and said the countries will "consider practical steps to prevent the proliferation" of such weapons.

 

It was unclear, however, how the signatories - who included Olmert and Assad - would enforce the pledge. Israel is widely believed to have a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Its official policy is called "nuclear ambiguity," neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear bombs.

 

The question of nuclear weapons in the region is particularly sensitive lately, given rising tensions between Israel and Iran, which the United States and its allies believe is seeking nuclear arms. Tehran maintains its uranium enrichment activities are aimed at producing nuclear energy.

 

Israeli jets destroyed what U.S. intelligence officials said was believed to be a nuclear reactor in Syria last year, though Syrian officials said it was part of a non-nuclear military program.

 

 

TERRORISM COMDEMNED

The summit declaration also condemned "terrorism in all its forms" and announced six major projects, from a common university and easier travel visas for students to depolluting the Mediterranean Sea and promoting solar power.

 

It also spoke of democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms - values Western critics have accused such union members as Syria of violating.

 

Sarkozy said the four-hour talks were successful and lively. "There were disagreements ... but were all there," Sarkozy said.

 

Assad left the enormous table before Olmert gave his speech to the more than 40 leaders seated around it, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Assad said later that he didn't shake Olmert’s hand because the two enemy nations are still only in indirect talks.

 

Sarkozy went to special efforts to bring Syria into the international fold for the summit: Assad met Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, separately, both for the first time. And he met Sarkozy, after years of chill between their countries.

 

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, co-presiding at the summit with Sarkozy, called on the new union to tackle reducing the wealth "gap" between north and south, and cited other southern Mediterranean "challenges" as education, food safety, health and social welfare.

 

He said the union has better chances of success than a previous cooperation process launched in Barcelona in 1995 because the new body focuses on practical projects parallel to efforts toward Mideast peace. Merkel said the project would have 13 billion (US$20.6 billion) that has not yet been spent by the Barcelona Process.

 

The new union is to include at least 43 nations, nearly all of which sent a president or prime minister to the summit. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi objected to the whole idea and refused to come.

 

The final declaration said the union is to be operational by the end of this year and will be jointly run by all its members. It will have a dual presidency, held jointly for rotating terms by one country within the European Union and one country on the Mediterranean shore.