Statesmanship and the Greek Crisis

Perhaps more than ever, genuine cooperation, wisdom and enlightened statesmanship were needed.

The new Palestinian leaders and people deserve equal praise for their moderation and statesmanship, patience and tolerance.

I was particularly struck by the manner in which SPLM leaders showed both poise and statesmanship in their hour of grief.

I wish to recognize the statesmanship displayed by members of the Paris Club, which recently granted African countries, among others, debt cancellation and debt relief.

A second reason to believe in Europe is that with statesmanship comes progress in governance. Monti and Hollande have both appointed women to key ministerial positions.

Fitting a rising power into a decaying international system has rarely occurred peacefully. Perhaps superior Western and Chinese statesmanship will avert a major war but this, in historical terms, would be a bonus.

The first reason for hope is that statesmanship is returning to Europe, even if in homeopathic doses. It is too early to predict the impact of François Hollande s election as President of France.

Politicians, too, tend to have their moral compasses calibrated to the relentless hunt for votes. Finding effective and moral solutions requires genuine statesmanship something that has been all too rare during the euro crisis.

It is our hope that wisdom and statesmanship will prevail, and that peace and stability will ultimately become a reality in Somalia, the Horn of Africa, the Sudan and other troubled regions of the African continent and beyond.

The recent saffron revolution in Burma presented China with not only a challenge, but also an opportunity to exert its influence. Yet it failed the test of statesmanship once again by sitting on its hands and merely calling for restraint.

Sadly, North Korea has not received such far sighted statesmanship. Faced with the North s dangerous nuclear game, we should ask what would have happened if, over the last 20 some years, the North Korea problem had been approached with the sagacity of Metternich and Kennedy.

I believe that it can do that. But, unless and until it does, thereby giving President Barack Obama a firm basis from which to engage Xi on issues requiring international statesmanship, the prospect of trouble between the US and China will continue to grow.

Fortunately, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Gordon Brown understand the challenge, and at least some parts of the Bush government seem aware of the problem. In the long period of American weakness, European leaders will have to demonstrate statesmanship for the West as a whole.

The previous year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel laid the plant s cornerstone herself, sending a strong signal of her seriousness about Germany s shift to clean, renewable energy. Indeed, the much noted Energiewende, or energy turnaround, that she announced in 2010 is arguably one of the most audacious acts of environmental statesmanship yet.

Of course, this conference will not bring an end to the Damascus Tehran axis. But if the US exercises a brand of statesmanship different from the one that has so far put it on the defensive on almost every front, it could start to eat away at the foundations of that axis.

If Merkel had wanted the agreement reached in Brussels, the outcome would have marked the beginning of a fundamental revision of the eurozone s crisis policy and thus an expression of successful statesmanship. Instead, it is a full blown defeat for Germany, linked to its firm denial that German policy has sharply reduced the country s influence in the EU.

He emphasized the following points the Sudanese parties should be congratulated for the wisdom and the statesmanship they displayed in reaching the Agreement and on succeeding in bringing the talks to a close by the end of the year in accordance with the commitment they gave at the meeting of the Security Council in Nairobi in November 2004.

While both parties are to be congratulated for this act of statesmanship, particular appreciation must go to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) for its mediation, the Government of Kenya and external sponsors who have worked tirelessly to bring the peace talks to a successful conclusion and many of whom provided generous financial contributions to the lengthy negotiation process.

The Hong Kong government should demonstrate some statesmanship, which the so called Umbrella Movement occupying the moral high ground and not wishing to risk losing public support would surely reciprocate. A substantive and successful dialogue with the government would not require the protesters to call off their campaign for democracy it would simply end the current phase of a campaign that eventually will succeed.

Inasmuch as this century has brought exceptional technological advances, economic initiative and growth, the new millennium will demand greater moral strength and public leadership. It will require its leaders to develop similar courage and statesmanship against powerful challenges. It will dare us all to harness the moral energy to transcend partisan agendas in favour of a common global imperative. It is impractical to alienate an individual apos s human rights from the right to development.