Davos summit ends with focus on Asia
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-30 08:55

The World Economic Forum wrapped up its annual meeting in this Swiss mountain resort Sunday with the emphasis firmly on business.

Business leaders reviewed the discussions of the week, which covered topics including the potential growth of China and India, Iran's nuclear program, Iraq and Hamas' landslide election victory.

Martin Sorrell, group chief executive of the British-based advertising giant WPP, said India had made a strong presentation to leaders during the Forum, while reports on the strength of the Chinese economy, now in third place globally by some measures, had sharpened the discussions.

"But it's not just India and China," Sorrel said. "In the context of Asia it's countries such as Pakistan, countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh in the long term, that will become critically important.

Latin America, in contrast, was hardly mentioned in the Forum's discussions, he said.

"I've been coming here for 15 years and this was the first time there was so little emphasis on Latin America," Sorrel added.

"I think a number of initiatives have been newly taken or enhanced during this meeting that will have a tangible impact," Klaus Schwab, the founder and head of the forum, said in his closing address.

On the last full day of the meeting Saturday, Britain said it hopes to lower the number of troops it has in Iraq, while former U.S. President Bill Clinton warned that the United States and its supporters should not leave Iraq prematurely.

Iraqi officials also urged more time and patience as they struggle to rebuild their country.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said London was looking to withdraw some of its 8,500 troops later this year, but did not provide a timetable.

"We hope to do some of that during the course of this year in at least two of the provinces, not Basra. I can't give a date and I can't give numbers, but that's our intention," Straw said at the forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. The southern Iraqi city of Basra is where the British contingent is mainly based.

Clinton said the U.S. and its supporters should not leave Iraq too quickly.

"We shouldn't just precipitously give this thing up and say it can't work," Clinton said. "If this thing works, it'll be a good thing for everybody in the Middle East. If it doesn't, it'll be trouble."

Hajim al-Hassani, president of the Iraqi National Assembly, said U.S. troops would not leave until the government could ensure its own security.

"There is a formula that has been agreed upon that withdrawal of the troops from Iraq should be a function of building Iraqi security," he said.

Straw took aim at Iraq's neighbor, saying British officials will hold talks Monday with a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator before a decision at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 2 on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear efforts.

"The problem is one of Iran's own making," Straw said. "What we have said is they have to provide objective guarantees that their nuclear capability is solely for civil nuclear power purposes."

Iran provoked an international outcry on Jan. 10 when it ended a two-year freeze and resumed small-scale enrichment of uranium — a process that can be used to produce fuel for generating electricity or material for atomic bombs.

To resume enrichment, Iran had to break the seals of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear monitoring body. Iran argues its program is intended only to generate electricity. The United States argues it is a ruse to develop nuclear weapons.

In Tehran, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, warned the United States and Britain that it would respond with missiles if attacked, a clear threat to Israel.

Meeting on the sidelines of the forum, 20 ministers from the World Trade Organization reaffirmed a timetable to conclude the Doha round of trade liberalization by the end of 2006.

"There's still a lot of work to be done," said Mark Vaile, Australia's deputy prime minister and trade minister.