The proposal was made in a joint article published in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
The two presidents wrote that trust — which they called "the most fragile of all political resources and the most valuable diplomatic currency" — is lacking in the Middle East. They noted that Europeans found a way out of a similar impasse half a century ago through the Helsinki process.
"We draw a simple lesson from this: trust is not a prerequisite for starting a process — it is the process itself that builds trust. In this spirit, and fully aware of how long and difficult that path proved to be, we propose launching a process for cooperative security in the Middle and Near East, modeled on the Helsinki process", they wrote.
The Middle East needs "a broad political process, both in terms of the circle of participants and the scope of topics", they said, calling for a "Helsinki moment" and expressing confidence that countries in the region share "significant common interests" beneath their contradictions.
"The beauty of the Helsinki process is that each side brings its own priorities to the talks, seeks common ground, negotiates shared positions, tests areas for confidence-building measures, and thereby gradually replaces elements of confrontation with elements of cooperation", Steinmeier and Stubb wrote.
They recalled that the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe involved 35 states, and called for all Middle Eastern countries to take part in the new process.
The two presidents acknowledged they had "no illusions about the obstacles" to their proposal, noting that today's Middle East is more complex than Cold War-era Europe. Without a structured process based on new concepts of cooperative security, they warned, the region would only continue fragmenting into "volatile, transactional and unstable alliances and counter-alliances".
"Structured dialogue, cooperation in specific areas, and confidence-building measures that worked in our region can also be effective elsewhere [...] At the outset, there was only the political will to seek a structured alternative to conflict", they said.
U.S. forces resumed airstrikes on Iran on July 7, following Tehran's attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The exchanges threaten a fragile peace agreement signed on June 17, part of an escalation that began February 28 with an Israeli and U.S. attack on Iran.
(jh)
Source: PAP