Conflict has cost Middle East $12 trillion

- By Reuters

Times of Oman, January 24, 2009

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GENEVA: Twenty years of conflict has cost the Middle East $12 trillion, a study showed on Friday. Unless the region's conflicts are resolved, the costs will continue to mount, said the study by India's Strategic Foresight Group, backed by governments or other agencies in Norway, Qatar, Switzerland and Turkey.

"The choice they have to make is the choice between the danger of devastation and the promise of peace," said Sundeep Waslekar, the group's president and one of the report's authors.

The figures are all the more striking as global recession and slowdown forces governments to scramble for billions of dollars to shore up banks and economies.

The study looks at the costs of the failure to conclude peace after the 1991 Madrid conference -- an attempt by the international community to start Israeli-Arab peace talks in the wake of the Gulf War -- negating many of the region's advantages in location, resources and education.

The report looks at conflict in the entire region from Iran to Egypt, including between Israel and its Arab neighbours, the war in Iraq, tension between Iran and Israel and al Qaeda's activities in the Middle East. It also includes rivalry between the Palestinian organisations Hamas and Fatah.

Much of the discussion at Friday's presentation of the report centred on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the aftermath of Israel's 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip that killed 1,300 Palestinians, wounded 5,000 and left thousands homeless. Israel lost 10 soldiers and three civilians.