Ban
Ki-moon and his diplomatic envoys have been scouring the
globe this week in search of a promising peace settlement for 2010, pursuing
talks with Kim Jong Il's government
in North Korea, Afghanistan's Taliban, and Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders.
These latest diplomatic initiatives follow a year that brought few
breakthroughs on the mediation front as the U.N. strained to advance democracy
in Burma, head off mass rights abuses in Sri Lanka, and manage a crisis that
threatens to trigger a resumption of civil war in Sudan.
U.N. officials say the proliferation of new initiatives is largely
coincidental, the product of months, if not years, of preparation, but that it
provides the U.N. with an opportunity to show that it can achieve some
diplomatic wins. "There's no grand strategy here," said one official. Here's a
survey of key U.N. diplomatic initiatives for 2010 and their prospects for
success:
1. Cyprus. Ban traveled to Cyprus
this weekend to nudge Demetris
Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat,
the parties representing the ethnic Greek and Turkish sides of the island, into
a breakthrough in a conflict that has lasted more than 35 years despite
repeated efforts at mediation. Ban said that he is confident that a political
settlement "is within reach." But the two
Cypriot leaders appeared more downbeat about the prospects for a deal. Cyprus
has been split since 1974. Talks between the two sides during the past 17
months have produced some results, including an agreement to open a pedestrian
crossing in Nicosia, the divided capital. But there is concern that April
elections in the Turkish section may bring a hard-liner to power. "Time is not on the side of settlement," the two
leaders acknowledged in a joint statement Monday.
2. North Korea. Ban, a former South
Korean diplomat, has been seeking a role in the North Korea crisis since he
first took office in January 2007. A confidential U.N. policy paper, produced
on April 25, 2007, called for "intensifying and expanding engagement" with
Pyongyang, and possibly for the appointment a special North Korea coordinator.
But initial attempts to start talks faltered after North Korea launched its
missile test and detonated its second nuclear explosive last April and May. On
Sunday, Ban announced that he would send his top political advisor, B. Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. diplomat,
to Pyongyang to restart high level U.N. talks later this month. He will be
joined by Ban's top Korean aide, Kim Won-soo.
Can Ban be far behind?
3. Afghanistan. The U.N.'s outgoing
special representative, Kai Eide,
held secret talks with members of the Taliban sometime last year. Eide has been
pursuing such contacts with the Taliban since he first started his job. U.N.
sources described those talks as highly preliminary, and said that they do not
have the approval of the Taliban leadership, which claims that its movement is
not negotiating with the U.N. But an official close to the talks confirmed that
they had in fact taken place and that Eide's successor, Staffan di Mistura, would likely continue pursuing those contacts.
While these discussions offer little hope of providing a breakthrough, they
could provide a useful back channel over the long haul.
4. Sudan. The U.N. faces perhaps its
greatest diplomatic challenge in Sudan, which is preparing for presidential
elections this year and a referendum in 2011 that will determine whether the
country remains unified or whether Sudan's southerners decide to vote for
independence. Ban has said Sudan will be one of his top priorities in 2010, and
he has just assigned his two top Africa specialists, Ibrahim Gambari and Haile
Menkerios, to manage U.N. operations on the ground. Success in Sudan will
largely be measured by the U.N.'s ability to stop the referendum from
triggering a renewed civil war. "Partitioning the country without violence: that
will be a miracle," said one Security Council diplomat. "I don't know how they
are going to do it."
5. Burma. U.N. diplomatic efforts in
Burma have pretty much run aground. Ban has reassigned his top Burma envoy,
Gambari, to Sudan, and made his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar of India, his temporary point man on Burma. The
Burmese military junta recently rebuffed a U.N. request to invite Gambari back
to the country for a final visit. U.N. diplomats say that Burma has little
interest in meeting with the U.N.'s diplomatic placeholders, particularly now
that the Americans are looking to engage the regime directly.
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