US: The United States Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, has called on Washington's European critics to move beyond the transatlantic dispute over the Iraq war by joining in a global effort to promote democracy in the Middle East, writes Denis Staunton in Davos
Addressing the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Cheney identified the European Union as a model for healing divisions and promoting progress.
"By the middle of the 20th century, generations of conflict had led some to conclude that permanent tension was a fact of life in Europe, and that some European cultures were incapable of sustaining democratic values.
"We now know that this pessimistic view was falseWhat was once said about Europe has been said at various times about Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and is often said today about the greater Middle East.
"We are told that the culture and the beliefs of the Islamic people are somehow incompatible with the values and the aspirations of freedom and democracy. These claims are condescending, and they are false," he said.
Mr Cheney, who was making only his second trip outside the US since taking office, said that encouraging freedom and democracy in the Middle East was both right and in the interest of the West. He said that Europeans had a particular interest in, and responsibility for, fostering democracy on its Middle Eastern doorstep.
"Europeans know that their great experiment in building peace, unity and prosperity cannot survive as a privileged enclave, surrounded on its outskirts by breeding grounds of hatred and fanaticism. The days of looking the other way while despotic regimes trample human rights, rob their nations' wealth, and then excuse their failings by feeding their people a steady diet of anti-Western hatred are over," he said.
The EU's foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, welcomed Mr Cheney's call for dialogue but suggested that the West should first put more energy into resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict. Mr Solana pointed out that the EU has association agreements with many Arab countries but cautioned against dreaming of a grand democratic structure too soon.
"To think that from Morocco to Afghanistan we're going to have something structured is a bit of a chimera," he said.
Denmark's Prime Minister, Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen, suggested the US and Europe should establish a formal framework for political, security and economic co-operation with the Middle East similar to the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe during the Cold War.
Despite his conciliatory tone, Mr Cheney admitted no mistakes in US foreign policy, defending the war in Iraq and rejecting criticism of the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. "These are not people sort of picked up at random, because we don't run up and down the streets of London or Paris or Riyadh saying, he's a likely looking prospect, let's put him in Guantanamo. These are people, primarily, who were picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan, trying to kill our troops we are faced with a situation where the war continues, if you will, where people in some cases have come into the United States whose only intent is to murder civilians.
"And under those circumstances, and given the rules of warfare, we felt we had no choice but to have a place where we could have a repository for these folks as long as they constitute a threat and as long as the conflict continues," he said.