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Roundup: Appointment of Envoy Seen as Deeper US Involvement in Mideast
US appointment of its ambassador to Jordan as a special envoy to the Middle East and its acceptance of the Mitchell report on the Israeli-Palestinian clashes may indicate that it would be involved deeper in helping defuse the spiral violence in the region.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced on Monday Washington's endorsement of the Mitchell report. He also named William Burns, a veteran diplomat, as a special envoy to follow up implementation of the proposals in the Mitchell report to help end the violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The appointment of Burns, with most of his 20 years of diplomatic services dedicated to the Middle East and his wide- ranging contacts with Arab leaders, is meant to demonstrate a bigger role in helping advance the Mideast peace process, political observers in Amman said.
On Tuesday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib welcomed the U.S. endorsement of the Mitchell report and the appointment of Burns as a special envoy, moves which he believed reflect a deeper U.S. desire to get involved in the peace process.
Burns' appointment is expected to address, to some extent, concerns of U.S. allies in the Arab world, notably Jordan and Egypt, that Washington is shifting its foreign policy focus away from the Arab-Israeli conflict, the observers said.
Jordanian and Egyptian officials fear that U.S. President George W. Bush is keeping the Mideast peace process at arm's length as he has failed to come up with a clear Mideast policy since taking office in January. He also has not showed signs of close involvement in the peace process to the extent of his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
The 44-year-old Burns began his diplomatic career in Jordan in 1982 as a junior political officer and returned to Amman in 1998 as the U.S. ambassador to the kingdom. He has close personal ties with Jordan's King Abdullah Bin Hussein, and won a fame of being pragmatic, sensible and active in Amman's diplomatic circle.
The tall, slim and soft-spoken Burns is known as a fervent advocate for closer U.S. involvement in the Mideast peace process, and his career was apparently bolstered with the recent nomination by Bush to head the Near East and North Africa Bureau of the State Department.
"Active American engagement in the Middle East is a necessity, not an option," Burns said last Thursday at his confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He called for further U.S. efforts to restore the economic hopes in the region and rebuild confidence between parties concerned in the peace process.
Burns' task now is to help implement recommendations in the Mitchell report to put an end to the violence, encourage confidence-building measures between Israel and the Palestinians and help bring them back to the negotiating table.
The report, released on Monday by the International Commission of Inquiry into the Palestinian-Israeli violence, headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, called on Israel and the Palestinians to take measures to restore mutual confidence and restart their peace talks to end the bloody conflict, which has left more than 520 people dead, most of them Palestinians, in nearly eight months.
On Monday, Powell said in Washington that Burns will report directly to him and Bush "on what we can do to help bring these recommendations (in the Mitchell report) into effect and then set out the time framework for implementation of the confidence- building measures leading to the resumption of negotiations."
However, Burns obviously has little room to maneuver before the Bush administration maps out a clear Mideast policy and step up its involvement in the region to end the Palestinian-Israeli bloody confrontation.
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