Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

A Sea of Tranquillity?

• Mark Mardell
• 13 Jul 08, 03:38 PM

President Sarkozy has greeted the 43 world leaders for a summit that at least looks more successful than many of us expected. He welcomed Mrs Merkel with a hug, Gordon Brown with what could have been a joke and the Turkish leader very quickly, shrugging as he left the platform.

Mr Sarkozy has made this summit about peace in the Middle East. In his main speech before the full meeting he said that the Mediterranean was the source of "all faith, all reason and all culture", that it was there that the first "fraternal civilisation" was built and from there that the religions of the book were born. He said it had created a notion of happiness, wisdom and self-esteem, but also tragedy. It had pushed to the extreme "a zest for life and fascination with death".

His central passage, too grand to be called a soundbite, was: "If this future is to be great, if this future is to be bright, if this future is to be a future of peace, a future of justice and future of progress everyone will have to make an effort, as the Europeans did, to put an end to the deadly spiral of war and violence that, century upon century, sporadically brought barbarity to the heart of civilisation."

I think it was a governor of New York who came up with that great phrase "we campaign in poetry, we govern in prose". Mr Sarkozy is one of those politicians who is full of surprises because he is always campaigning and never abandons poesy.

• Permalink
• Comments (0)

Sarkozy's helping hand

• Mark Mardell
• 13 Jul 08, 11:58 AM

Was there a handshake?

It's inevitable, with scores of TV cameras and photographers covering this summit, that there is always a search for a symbolic picture that sums up the mood and any progress made. It's inevitable that today the question was whether there would be a handshake when the Israel prime minister met the Palestinian leader in Paris.

I am not sure whether there was or not, but the real, actual picture probably says more about the relationship between the Israeli PM and the leader of the Palestinian Authority.

President Sarkozy could hardly contain himself before the meeting, seizing the hands of both men and pumping them up and down with a manic energy.

After the meeting the Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was effusive, saying that never before had a deal been so close. It's worth remembering that there are new allegations of corruption against him today and describes him as not so much a "lame duck as a cooked goose". It would not be the first time a leader with domestic troubles suggested he was on the verge of a big breakthrough on the world stage.

Then as the news conference ended the French president again seized their hands and, looking like a man bringing two opposing sets of magnets together, slowly dragged them closer and closer and then performed an operation a bit like a children's pat-a-cake game, until all three were at least holding hands and arguably engaging in a three-way handshake. I've got a feeling that Bill Clinton once did something similar with Rabin and Arafat.

Perhaps there is more accurate symbolism, about the role of "the international community", than the photographers hoped for.

• Permalink
• Comments (0)

Hot air or a wind of hope?

• Mark Mardell
• 13 Jul 08, 10:05 AM

The French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, detects a "wind of hope" blowing around the Grand Palais in Paris, the giant greenhouse-like structure where the Mediterranean summit is being held. Much of the French press insist however that, the summit, if not the palace, is an empty shell. It is hard to tell.

What has excited the French foreign minister and allowed the French president to utter the words "historic" is an agreement between Syria and Lebanon that for the first time ever they will open embassies in each others' countries.

But Syria's president is playing this down and suggests that this agreement was first reached in 2005, and no new steps had been agreed. Although no Middle East expert, it would seem to me that it would be more important to establish whether Syria still believes it has a right to intervene in Lebanese affairs, up to and including the murder of political opponents. But even the restatement of an agreement, at a high-profile meeting, can't be a bad thing. As one diplomat mused: "Freshness is not important, it's the thawing of relations. There's nothing wrong with playing the mood music twice."

Presumably the reason that there have never been diplomatic relations between the two countries since they were set up in the late 1940s is because, whether formally or informally, Syria regards Lebanon, once a province of Greater Syria under both the Ottoman Empire and the French, as a legitimate part of its sphere of influence, if not its actual territory. And perhaps the French should sort it out, as it was they who were responsible for this particular detail in the carving of nation states out of the old empire. Tell me if I am wrong, I am sure you will.

• Permalink
• Comments (0)