Acrimony clouds G8 summit
2004-06-10 20:31
Sea Island - Group of Eight leaders have wound up a summit that adopted a raft of anti-terror, trade and development measures, but missed out on a hoped-for display of unity with new trans-Atlantic squabbles.
Before leaving their exclusive retreat, leaders issued a day pass to counterparts from Africa, and found time to ask for a new bid by the diplomatic quartet on the Middle East to kick-start peace talks.
They will head either for home, or the funeral of former United States president Ronald Reagan on Friday, still divided on Iraq, despite a United Nations resolution on Tuesday granting sovereignty to that country.
The main business on the third and final day of the summit was a meeting by leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States with African counterparts.
The G8 leaders were to endorse a series of proposals aimed at easing the poverty on the continent and expected to renew their fight against HIV/Aids that has devastated many African nations.
Want movement on Israel, Palestine
But the Africans - the presidents of Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda - wanted to dispel suggestions they had arrived at this millionaires' private island retreat as beggars.
A day after adopting President George W Bush's contentious plan for social and political reform in the Middle East and North Africa, the leaders renewed a push to get stalled peace talks moving between Israel and the Palestinians.
The summit had been billed as a chance to consign old animosity about the US invasion of Iraq to history, after the West closed ranks to pass a new UN security council resolution on Iraq on Tuesday.
But new diplomatic brushfires broke out almost immediately, even as Bush led Iraq's new interim ruler Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar on to the world stage.
Bush and French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday failed to patch up their row about Nato in Iraq.
But, casting around for areas of agreement after their face-to-face meeting, they settled on cheeseburger diplomacy with Chirac complimenting Bush on the fare served at the exclusive resort hosting the summit.
Europe sceptical about Mid-East reform
The G8 leaders also called on Sudan on Thursday to disarm militias they blamed for "massive human rights violations" in the troubled Darfur region.
Discord surfaced, however, about the issue of Iraq's mountainous debt, with European states resisting US calls to quickly forgive almost all of it.
Bush managed to win an endorsement from leaders for his plans for a social, political and economic reform in the Middle East and northern Africa, despite significant scepticism in Europe and the Arab world.
As well as Mbeki, African leaders arriving here on Thursday included Ebdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, John Kufuor of Ghana, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.