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Pro Democracy Forum goals thwarted

An international conference intended to advance democracy in the Middle East ended Saturday without a formal declaration, eliciting expressions of disappointment from U.S. officials, who considered the conference a key part of President Bush`s regional democracy initiative. In a surprise move, Egypt, which accounts for more than half the Arab world`s population and is the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, derailed the Forum for the Future by demanding language that would have given Arab governments significant control over which pro-democracy groups would receive aid from a new fund.

Participants may have to wait another year for a region-wide declaration, Bahrain`s foreign minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Khalifa, said at a news conference here. The gathering of dozens of nations -- including 22 Arab countries, members of the G-8 industrialized countries and others -- nevertheless agreed to set up two new groups to promote political and economic reform.

The Forum for the Future, a joint U.S.-European initiative launched at the 2004 G-8 summit hosted by Bush at Sea Island, Ga., is an element of the administration`s Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative. With the related issue of Iraq, promoting democracy in the Islamic world is the Bush administration`s top foreign policy priority.