As reported by Reuters:
PARIS, Feb 19 (Reuters) -
Saudi Arabia and
China diluted
Western efforts on Saturday to have the Group of 20 major world
economies offer support to
Tunisia and
Egypt in their transition
to democracy, delegates said. The diplomatic wrangle came as authorities in
Libya,
Bahrain
and
Yemen used lethal force to try to quash anti-government
protests inspired by the popular uprisings that ousted
authoritarian rulers in
Tunisia and
Egypt.
G20 president France urged
finance ministers and central
bankers of countries representing 85 percent of global economic
output to welcome the change in the two north African Arab
states and declare their willingness to provide resources to
help their interim governments during the transition. "In the shorter term,
France will ask you to be ready to
join forces to accompany our Tunisian and Egyptian friends on
the road to democracy, in making economic and social progress,"
President Nicolas Sarkozy told them in a speech on Friday.
Delegates said the wording of the draft
G20 communique had
been considerably watered down to remove any welcome of the
popular uprisings but leave the offer of help.
Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with no elected
parliament, strongly opposed any endorsement of the popular
uprisings that toppled Tunisian
President Zine al-Abidine Ben
Ali and Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak, they said.
"This sort of talk makes people like the Saudis rather
nervous," one Western delegate said. "Understandably, the
Chinese are weighing in as well."
Beijing argued that the
Middle East situation was a matter
for foreign ministers, not finance chiefs, he said.
"This is the nature of the
G20, where we have democracies
but also less democratic governments," the delegate said.
Most Western leaders have welcomed the popular wave sweeping
North Africa and the
Middle East, but analysts are nervous of
how further civil unrest, economic disruption and a surge in
migration will affect the rest of the world.
France, the formal colonial power in
Tunisia and an
influential voice with big economic interests in the Middle
East, wants to see stable democracies take root in both
countries, where it long had close ties with the ousted rulers.
(Reporting by
Paul Taylor and
Catherine Bremer, editing by Mike
Peacock)
