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French
Parliamentary delegates, Didier Julia, right, and Eric Diard,
left, walk in front of a portrait of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein in Baghdad Sunday, Sept.15
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BAGHDAD,
September 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Three members of
France’s parliament on a “private” visit to Iraq went Sunday,
September 15, to a former nuclear site and urged Baghdad to readmit
U.N. weapons inspectors in order to ward off a U.S. strike.
The
French government, meanwhile, reprimanded the three MPs from President
Jacques Chirac’s party for traveling to Iraq, qualifying their trip
as unofficial and ill-timed, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Thierry
Mariani, Didier Julia and Eric Diard from Chirac’s center-right
Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP) were taken Sunday by
authorities to al-Toweitheh, 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of
Baghdad, site of the Tammuz (Osirak) Iraqi nuclear reactor bombed out
by Israel in 1981.
The
three said the site did not appear to be used for military pursuits,
but added that they were not experts and U.N. arms inspectors would be
better judges.
For
its part, the French government dismissed the MPs’ visit and did not
hide its displeasure, said AFP.
“This
is a personal initiative made by several parliamentarians, which does
not have the approval of the French authorities,” said deputy
foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.
“We
told the interested parties our feelings about the untimely nature of
the trip, given the current context,” he added.
Iraq
took reporters to the same site September 9 as part of a public
relations exercise designed to refute U.S. and British accusations
that it is developing weapons of mass destruction and should disarm or
face the prospect of a U.S.-led strike.
French
arms expert Jacques Baute, who led several International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) inspections in Iraq, said on September 6 that satellite
pictures showed new construction at several nuclear sites inspected in
the past.
But
an IAEA spokesman later denied that the agency had any new evidence
about Iraq’s pursuit of nuclear weapons since U.N. inspectors left
the country in December 1998.
The
MPs, who flew into Baghdad Saturday, were due to confer later Sunday
with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and parliament Speaker
Saadun Hammadi.
Aziz
said on Saturday, September 14, that Iraq would consider a proposal by
Chirac to set a three-week deadline for Baghdad to readmit U.N. arms
inspectors provided Chirac guaranteed that this would stop a U.S.
attack.
“We
will tell Mr. Aziz that as things stand, Iraq will have to accept the
immediate return of the UN inspectors in order to avert an attack,
which is in no one’s interest, and make it possible to lift (U.N.)
sanctions in accordance with a set timetable,” Mariani told AFP.
He
said that while he and his fellow National Assembly members had come
to Iraq on their own initiative, the visit was compatible with
Chirac’s approach to the current standoff over Iraq’s arms
capabilities.
The
three men were due to visit another site suspected of producing
prohibited weapons on Monday. They said they had picked the site,
which has not been inspected since 1997.
Meanwhile,
British Labor MP George Galloway, who arrived Saturday in Iraq which
he frequently visits, will be among about 100 politicians,
intellectuals and union leaders holding a meeting chaired by Iraqi
Prime Minister Tareq Aziz later Monday, September 16, in Baghdad,
organizers told AFP.
The
meeting, which has been held every six months since its creation four
years ago, was meant to follow up on efforts by participants as part
of a worldwide campaign against the international embargo imposed on
Iraq, they said.
Earlier
Saturday, James Abourezk, who used to represent South Dakota in the
senate, was speaking to reporters after he, Democratic West Virginia
Rep. Nick Rahall and two other Americans met with Iraqi Health
Minister Omed Medhat Mubarak, news agencies reported.
Abourezk
said on his visit that it would be immoral for America to attack Iraq
without provocation.
The
four-person delegation arrived overnight in Iraq, saying it intended
to push for peace as well as the return of U.N. weapons inspectors.
“We
are on a humanitarian mission ... not only to convince the Iraqi
people that the American people are concerned with their suffering,
but also to show that the American people, their vast majority, are
peace-waging individuals,” Rahall told reporters after flying in
from Syria.
