"America wants to align itself with the people of the Middle East," said Powell

WASHINGTON, December 12 (AFP) - The United States on Thursday, December  12, launched an initiative to strengthen democracy in Middle East countries, partly to answer critics who say it favors authoritarian pro-American governments.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States wanted to show that it was on the side of reform and change in the Middle East, reported France Agence-Presse (AFP).

The so-called U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative has been delayed several times as tensions have grown around Iraq.

The project "will provide funding and a framework for the United States to work together with governments and people in the Arab world to expand economic, education and political opportunity," said the State Department.

"Any approach to the Middle East that ignores its political, economic and educational development will be built upon sand.

"It is time to lay a firm foundation of hope," Powell said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington to launch the initiative.

"America wants to align itself with the people of the Middle East."

He added that the new project was "an initiative that places the United States firmly on the side of change, on the side of reform, on the side of a modern future for the Middle East and on the side of hope."

"It is a bridge between the United States and the Middle East," he declared adding that Washington would, for example, help Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Lebanon to meet the criteria to get membership of the World Trade Organization.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will serve as coordinator for the project, to be managed by the State Department's Bureau of Near East Affairs.

But experts have warned that the program, if not handled with care, risks offending Arab governments, which though allied with Washington, have been criticized for their social and political freedoms.

The initiative follows several U.S. analyses seeking the cause of resentment of the United States by Muslims around the world following last year's September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

It is intended, say observers, as a response to accusations that Washington's interest in the region is oil and support of Israel, and that it is indifferent to the aspirations of Arab people.

The initiative was to have been announced on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September but this was called off as President George W. Bush was then pressing the United Nations to take a tough line with Iraq.

An expected announcement in November was also put back because U.S. officials were concerned that the project would not get a warm welcome from countries in the region.

A State Department official said Washington was counting on allocating some 20 million dollars to the initiative, but the project would also include a review of U.S. aid to the countries involved with an eye to improving democratic reform.

"There are various places in the Arab world moving towards more reforms and democracy, and we want to support these elements of freedom, of reforms," said the official, specifically citing Morocco and Bahrain, both of which recently held elections.

In a first reaction to Powell's statements, Hafez el-Merazi, an expert in Arab-American relations, asserted that the so-called absence of democracy in the Middle East is always floated whenever the United States is facing a crisis situation with some Arab countries, in reference to Arab opposition to a US-led war on Iraq.

Powell ignored to speak about the Arab-Israeli conflict, the crux of the Middle East problems, although he talked about U.S. contribution to solving Mideast problems, charged the expert.