PARIS – Leaders of 43 nations with nearly 800 million inhabitants inaugurated an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean yesterday, meant to bring the northern and southern countries that ring the sea closer together through practical projects dealing with the environment, climate, transport, immigration and policing.
MICHEL SPINGLER / Associated Press
Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (left) and Nicolas Sarkozy of France answered questions yesterday after the Mediterranean summit meeting in Paris.
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In a final declaration at the close of a summit, Israel, Syria, the Palestinians 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 countries committed to “consider practical steps to prevent the proliferation” of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their delivery systems. It was unclear how the signatories – who included Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Syrian President Bashar Assad – would enforce the pledge.
Israel is widely believed to have a stockpile of nuclear weapons but neither confirms nor denies it has them. Syria, an Israeli foe, might also have nuclear ambitions.
While trying to unify the region, the summit laid bare the deep divisions that still slice through it and highlighted how hard it will be to parlay the meeting's good will and words into real progress. Syria's president refused to shake the Israeli prime minister's hand, and Morocco's king snubbed the meeting attended by the president of rival Algeria.
Still, summit host Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, reveled at having brought so many leaders to the same table for the first time.
“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.
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.
The leaders still disagree about where the union's headquarters will be and the nationality of the union's secretary-general, and some of its financing remains vague.
Sarkozy went to special efforts to bring Syria into the 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, 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.
But Sarkozy's ambitious plan overlapped with EU projects in progress, and it was expanded to include 27 members of the EU, not just those on the Mediterranean coast.
Still, the Union for the Mediterranean – Sarkozy's brainchild – was a significant accomplishment for French diplomacy, with only Libya refusing to attend and the kings of Morocco and Jordan pleading other engagements.
Yesterday, before the union summit meeting began, Sarkozy hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's Olmert for another of their regular meetings to try to negotiate the principles for a peace deal.
New York Times News Service contributed to this report.
