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France, Russia Stand Firm As U.S. Tries to Persuade on Iraq
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| Chirac listened to U.S. arguements, but still against
war |
PARIS, September 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A senior U.S. diplomat Friday, September 27, 2002, tried to convince France to approve a tough new UN resolution on Iraq, but French President Jacques Chirac refused to budge on the question of threatening the country with military force.
U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman met in the French capital with Foreign Ministry officials and Chirac's top Foreign Policy aide to unveil a U.S.-British draft resolution, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
However, in telephone talks with U.S. President George W. Bush about the text, Chirac reiterated his opposition to any resolution that would allow the use of force against Baghdad if it failed to cooperate with UN demands.
Chirac said Paris favored a resolution that was "simple and firm, showing the unity and determination of the international community" to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq, according to his spokeswoman Catherine Colonna.
The statement appeared to derail Grossman's push to win over key UN Security Council members France and Russia in a bid to break the standoff over future international action in Iraq.
According to sources in Paris, the U.S.-British text calls for toughening UN inspections in Iraq, which Washington and London accuse of secretly developing weapons of mass destruction.
It calls for possible military protection of weapons inspectors and an automatic right to use force if Iraq fails to comply, the sources said.
But in his conversation with Bush, Chirac again made clear France's preference for two, rather than one, resolutions on Iraq - one on the return of UN arms inspectors to the country, and a second if Baghdad fails to comply.
The French leader "recalled that France more than ever supports a two-step process, as does the majority of the international community, given the seriousness of the decisions to be made and their consequences," Colonna said.
"We don't want it (use of force) to be automatic. We want a two-step process," a French diplomat told AFP earlier in the day.
"We think that peace should be given a chance, and that we should proceed step by step," Chirac said earlier this week at a Europe-Asia summit in Copenhagen, adding he opposed any pre-emptive strike against Iraq.
Grossman, accompanied by his British counterpart Peter Ricketts, was expected in Moscow at the weekend for a similar round of negotiations aimed at hammering out a compromise.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he believes the Iraq situation can be resolved without the adoption of any new UN resolution at all, while Beijing made the return of UN arms inspectors its top priority.
On Friday, ahead of Grossman's visit to Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said there was no "clear proof" to back up U.S. and British claims of a weapons build-up in Iraq.
Paris and Moscow share the "same approach" on Iraq, while Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji lent Beijing's support to Chirac's two-stage plan after talks with the French leader on Thursday, September 26, according to Chirac's spokeswoman.
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and have the power to veto any resolution.
The flurry of diplomatic activity comes ahead of new talks set for Monday in Vienna between chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq Hans Blix and Iraqi officials on the conditions for the return of arms inspectors to the country.
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