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Sanctions are hurting not Saddam Hussein, they are hurting a lot of poor people, old people, pregnant mothers: Mahathir Mohamad
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UNITED
NATIONS, September 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – By
agreeing to new U.N. weapons inspections,
Iraq
has removed any excuse for a U.S.-led war, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq
Aziz said Tuesday, September 17. “The excuse used to launch an
aggression has been totally blocked,” Aziz told a gathering of
political supporters in
Baghdad
.
Meanwhile,
members of the U.N. Security Council now have to ponder their next
move after
Iraq
said it had agreed to the unconditional return of U.N. arms
inspectors, and while the
United States
dismissed the move as a stalling tactic.
The
Iraqi offer came in a letter given to U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan by Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
“I
am pleased to inform you of the decision of the Government of the
Republic of Iraq to allow the return of the United Nations weapons
inspectors to Iraq without conditions”, the letter said.
Annan
said
Iraq
had agreed in the letter “to start immediate discussions on the
practical arrangements for the return of the inspectors”, withdrawn
in December 1998 ahead of U.S.-British air strikes.
Sabri’s
letter said the government of President Saddam Hussein wanted “to
remove any doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass
destruction.”
He
also reminded Annan that the secretary general had told the General
Assembly the return of the inspectors should be “the indispensable
first step” towards “a comprehensive solution that includes the
lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iraq.”
The
White House dismissed the Iraqi move as a “tactical step in hopes of
avoiding strong U.N. Security Council action. As such, it is a tactic
that will fail.
“This
is not a matter of inspection. It is about disarmament of Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's compliance with all
other Security Council resolutions."
Other
key U.N. members were more cautious, with only Russia among the five
veto-wielding permanent Security Council members immediately welcoming
the Iraqi move.
“Thanks
to our joint efforts, we managed to avert the threat of a war scenario
and go back to political means of solving the Iraqi problem,”
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said.
French
Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the council “must now
hold Saddam Hussein to his word.”
And
British Prime Minister Tony Blair noted Saddam had a “long history
of playing games.”
But
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan was optimistic, telling Xinhua
news agency that “the Iraqi decision is what the international
community, including China, has always hoped to see.”
“China
will, together with the international community, continue to strive
for the political settlement of the Iraqi issue within the framework
of the United Nations.”
Annan
said a tough speech last week by U.S. President George W. Bush to the
U.N. General Assembly had “galvanized the international community”
to put pressure on Iraq.
Bush
on Thursday, September 12, challenged the U.N. to enforce the demands
made of Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, in particular that it
give up all its weapons of mass destruction.
The
Iraqi move followed four days of intense diplomatic lobbying by the
United States to drum up support for a tough new Security Council
resolution to force Iraq to disarm.
“I
have had quite a number of bilateral meetings, and I think the
political dynamic has changed and there is a great deal of pressure
for Iraq to come into compliance,” U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell said earlier.
The
first hint that Iraq might be buckling to pressure came in an
announcement by its official INA news agency that Saddam had chaired
three meetings with top aides in Baghdad within 24 hours.
Annan
and Sabri then canceled a scheduled meeting.
France’s
de Villepin said a key factor was unanimity among Arab states that
Iraq should let the inspectors back. “The Arabs are closer than
ever, this is a real achievement,” he said.
Annan
acknowledged Arab states had “played a key role,” and singled out
the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Mussa, for “his
strenuous efforts in helping to convince Iraq to allow the return of
the inspectors.”
A
spokesman for the chief U.N. arms inspector, Hans Blix, welcomed the
Iraqi statement and said: “We are ready for immediate talks in New
York on the practical arrangements” for resuming inspections.
Blix
told the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine in an article
published on Sunday, September 15, that “the first inspections could
happen within two weeks,” and that “a large enough group could be
put together” in a month.
He
had said earlier that it would probably take a year to complete the
inspections, and only if “there is cooperation in all respects by
Iraq.”
Meanwhile,
Malaysia said Iraq should be rewarded for agreeing to the return of
weapons inspectors with an immediate lifting of sanctions.
“For
agreeing to that we should already take action to lift sanctions,”
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.
“Sanctions
are hurting not Saddam Hussein, they are hurting a lot of poor people,
old people, pregnant mothers.”
