PARIS,
October 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Washington is open to the
idea of a debate in the U.N. Security Council before taking any military
action against Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an
interview published here Tuesday, October 29.
But
Powell, speaking to several European news organizations in Washington on
Monday, October 28, including the French newspaper Le Monde, refused to
concede that such action required a specific U.N. resolution, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Powell
explained that a new draft text stipulated that if Iraq prevented arms
inspectors from doing their job, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix
and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohammed
El-Baradei would brief Security Council members about the violations.
Council
members could then debate possible action to be taken against Baghdad,
he said, according to the version of the interview published in Le
Monde.
“Some
say action requires a second resolution, but it could just be a second
debate.
“Those
who wish to do so will have the option of proposing a second resolution
or not, and we will participate in that debate.
“Everyone
who wants the possibility of a debate before the Council acts is thus
satisfied,” Powell said.
Powell’s
comments appeared to signal a new effort by Washington to calm the fears
of other permanent members of the Security Council - notably France and
Russia - that a strong text would give the United States carte blanche
to launch a military strike.
The
Council’s 15 members are currently engaged in a crucial debate over
the draft resolution.
Blix
met Council members Monday, October 28, to answer questions about the
U.S. proposals to strengthen the inspectors’ mandate.
He
asserted that there might be “great practical difficulties” in
taking Iraqis out of the country to interview them, as proposed by the
U.S. draft, unless the Iraqi authorities were willing to help.
Meanwhile,
Washington said Tuesday the gap has narrowed in the U.N. Security
Council over a strong draft resolution to disarm Iraq and will pursue
talks as France called for a unanimous decision.
“We
think we are making progress; we think we have narrowed down the
differences to a few key issues,” State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher said, adding: “Everyone wants a strong resolution.”
The
comment followed a blunt ultimatum from President George W. Bush, who
labeled his Iraqi counterpart Saddam Hussein “a person who has made
the United Nations look foolish.”
“If
the United Nations does not have the will or the courage to disarm
Saddam Hussein, and if Saddam Hussein will not disarm,” Bush said,
“the United States will lead a coalition and disarm Saddam Hussein.”
French
Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told the BBC, “The problem
among the international community is not: to act or not to act. (It is)
how efficient we are going to be in the action we decide.
“That’s
why we think that this resolution must be decided by all the Security
Council, by a unanimous decision.”
“We
need a resolution that is going to say which are the practical
arrangements needed to have (United Nations) inspectors back in Iraq,
and how these should work.
“And
then if Iraq does not comply with its obligations then the Security
Council will have to convene again and decide what to do.”
Both
France and Russia have been pushing for a two-step U.N. process that
would require the Council to reconvene to decide on the action to take
if Saddam failed to comply fully with weapons inspections.
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“No
German role in possible attack on
Iraq
,” says Schroeder
|
German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder reiterated Tuesday in his first major
speech to the new parliament, that Berlin would not take part in a
possible attack on Iraq.
“Security
is today less than ever to be ensured through military means, let alone
military means on their own,” Schroeder said, adding that there was
still a chance, using the U.N. Security Council above all, “to avoid a
military confrontation in the Gulf.”
Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer, who will fly Wednesday, October 30, to
Washington for talks with Powell, said the U.S. emphasis on Iraq did not
match Germany’s assessment of the threat.
“I
wonder if the priority on Iraq makes sense - to put it
diplomatically,” he said in his address to the Bundestag lower house.
He
said “many” other regional conflicts, given the threat of
international terrorism, had priority over any attack on Iraq.
“We
must be careful that good intentions do not lead to wrong
conclusions,” with the danger of encouraging even more terrorism,
Fischer warned.
Meanwhile,
an opinion poll published Tuesday showed that two out of three
Portuguese feel their country should not back any U.S. military action
against Iraq.
The
survey, by the Marktest polling firm published in daily Diario de
Noticias, found that 66.2 percent of respondents were against supporting
U.S. action, 22.4 percent were in favor, with the remainder undecided.
The
poll also found only 16.6 percent of respondents agreed with the reasons
given by Washington that an attack on Iraq was necessary.
Almost
three-quarters - 73.6 percent - of those questioned were against
Portugal contributing troops to any military operation in Iraq, which
Washington accuses of harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Some
16 percent were in favor of a Portuguese military contribution while 10
percent were undecided.
The
telephone poll was carried out between October 14-17.
Iranian
President Mohammad Khatami, on a state visit to Spain, repeated
Tehran’s opposition to a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq.
“We
have said several times that we are against any military attack on Iraq
(even though) we have been victims of the Iraqi government,” Khatami
said at a joint press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria
Aznar.
But
he stressed that Iraq must uphold U.N. resolutions seeking to ensure it
was not developing weapons of mass destruction.
“If
there is a change (of government) in Iraq, it must be done according to
the will of the Iraqi people” without outside interference, he said.
Meanwhile,
the United Nations on Tuesday voiced “concern” over Baghdad’s
complaint that U.S. and British warplanes had been overflying the
demilitarized zone (DMZ) with Kuwait to penetrate Iraq's airspace.
“This
was my biggest concern since I took command last year in UNIKOM”, the
United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observers Mission that monitors the DMZ,
force commander Major-General Miguel Moreno told reporters.
“We
sent two letters to (U.N. headquarters in) New York requesting devices,
equipment, a radar or whatever is necessary to identify the flights
violating UNIKOM skies ... we are waiting for this new material to
come,” he added.
He
said the situation on the Iraq-Kuwait border was “very calm and quiet,
there is nothing to comment on regarding the situation.”
Moreno,
an Argentinean, was speaking after a farewell visit to Iraqi Foreign
Minister Naji Sabri, as his assignment as UNIKOM commander ends next
month.
Sabri
on October 19 sent a new letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to
protest the violation of Iraq’s skies by U.S. and British warplanes
based in Kuwait transiting through the DMZ airspace.
UNIKOM
monitors a DMZ set up along the Kuwait-Iraq border after the 1991 Gulf
War, in which a U.S.-led coalition evicted Iraqi occupation troops from
Kuwait. It reports to the U.N. Security Council any violation by either
side.
The
DMZ extends 10 kilometers (six miles) into Iraq and five kilometers
(three miles) into Kuwait.
It
arches for about 300 kilometers (185 miles) round the north of Kuwait
from the Gulf to the frontier between Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. A
trench, a sand wall and an electric fence extend along Kuwait's
200-kilometre-long (125-mile-long) land border with Iraq.
The
two countries also share a 40-kilometer-long (25-mile-long) sea border.
Baghdad
underlined Tuesday that independent media and individuals should
accompany U.N. weapons inspectors, cautioning the U.S. would otherwise
exploit the inspection mission as a pretext for waging war.
