Embassy Row

Cyprus’ Mideast view

The ambassador from Cyprus criticized U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East, as he called for “nuanced diplomacy” to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and rejected “regime change” in pursuit of democracy in Arab nations.

Ambassador Euripides L. Evriviades, in a recent speech, also compared Palestinian suicide bombings targeted at civilians to Israeli military efforts to kill terrorist leaders, calling them “both integral elements of the very same cycle of violence.”

Mr. Evriviades, who served as ambassador to Israel from 1997 to 2000, told an audience at the University of New Hampshire in Durham that the United States and the European Union must cooperate to promote Middle East peace and work with the “existing governments” in the region.

He also said his government supports U.S. efforts to build a democratic, stable and secure Iraq.

“The challenges for the United States and Europe in jump-starting the peace process are daunting indeed,” he said. “At a minimum, nuanced diplomacy and expert management are called for. The agreed upon policies … must be implemented in cooperation and not in opposition with the existing governments.”

Mr. Evriviades endorsed the U.S. initiative to promote democracy in the region but warned it faces a “fundamental obstacle” without a “sustained effort to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“The EU and Cyprus both understand the fact that progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is key to forging progress in the region,” he said.

The U.S. democracy initiative “must replace policies seeking ’regime change’ with policies securing institutionalized change,” the ambassador said, adding that such change cannot be “imposed from the outside.”

On Iraq, Mr. Evriviades said, “Regardless of the particular feeling on the war in Iraq, it is now imperative that the stabilization, democratization and economic development of the country succeed. …

“The region cannot afford to have two major open wounds at the same time — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the one hand and an unstable Iraq on the other.”

Denmark’s courage

The prime minister of Denmark will become the first foreigner to receive the Lyndon B. Johnson Moral Courage Award when he visits Houston next week to accept the honor to commemorate Danish efforts to save Jews during World War II.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen will receive the award “on behalf of the kingdom of Denmark for the miraculous action by people of all levels to save the Jewish population during the Holocaust,” the Danish Embassy said yesterday.

Denmark was the only country occupied by the Nazis to resist orders to deport its Jewish citizens, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Danes organized a nationwide plan to smuggle most of the country’s 8,000 Jews to neutral Sweden in hundreds of boats over a two-week period in 1943.

The Nazis sent about 500 Danish Jews to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. All but 51 survived the war.

“The Danes proved that widespread support for Jews and resistance to Nazi policies could save lives,” the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise said.

Mr. Rasmussen plans to donate a model of one of the fishing boats used in the rescue to the Houston Holocaust Museum. After the awards ceremony on April 21, he will meet with former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and address Mr. Baker’s public policy institute at Rice University.

Maalouf promoted

Arab-American diplomat Walid Maalouf has been appointed director of public diplomacy for Middle East issues at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Mr. Maalouf has served as a deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations since September 2003 and is the only American diplomat to address the U.N. General Assembly in Arabic, the agency said.

• Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.