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France to Submit New Iraq Draft, Massive Washington Anti-War Demo Planned
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Massive anti-war demonstrations are planned later Saturday in
Washington
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PARIS,
October 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - France plans to submit
its own draft resolution on a settlement to the Iraq crisis to the
United Nations if no accord is reached with the United States, French
Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Saturday, October 26.
"There
is still work to be done, progress to be made and we have said so to
our American friends for weeks," De Villepin said, adding that
Paris would try to work with Washington on the basis of the proposed
U.S. draft.
"If
there is no breakthrough, we shall obviously officially submit our own
document. We want to reach an agreement," he said.
France
wants a unanimous vote in the Security Council "to send a clear
and strong message" to Iraq, said De Villepin, but added that for
Paris the use of force cannot be automatic and can only be a last
resort.
After
the U.N. Security Council adjourned for the weekend Friday, October
25, the crunch stage of negotiations over a new Iraq resolution has
arrived.
Five
hours of informal talks failed to resolve differences over a U.S.
draft resolution condemned by Baghdad as a pretext to war.
The
talks are expected to resume Monday, October 28, when council members
are to be briefed by chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix, according to
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
France
and Russia Friday circulated rival proposals to tone down a tough U.S.
draft, on which Washington could seek a vote at any time.
"The
hardball is beginning," said a diplomat from one of the five
veto-wielding permanent members of the council, as the 15-nation body
prepared for a closed-door session.
At
least nine "yes" votes, with no vetoes, are required if a
resolution is to be approved, reported British daily The
Independent.
The
proposed U.S. resolution, co-sponsored by Britain, gives far-reaching
powers to the U.N. weapons inspectors and lays down a tight timetable
for Iraq to comply fully with the demand for unfettered access to his
suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons facilities.
If
not, then Baghdad will face unspecified "serious
consequences" – which France and Russia say is coded (as) prior
approval for military action against the Iraqi regime, bypassing
France's public demand for a second resolution authorizing the use of
force.
The
U.S., however, says it will not countenance anything but minor changes
to its seven-page text. The tough terms, it insists, are
non-negotiable.
"This
is now a game of chicken," one official said. "The U.S. is
daring France and Russia to stand in its way, and risk a top level
rupture in international relations. They are daring the U.S. and
Britain to go it alone, without security council approval."
Washington
and London believe the French can be won around, even though the best
to be hoped for may be abstention. The tougher problem is Russia.
If
the dispute is to be resolved by the end of next week, as an ever-more
impatient Bush administration wants, officials believe the impasse
will have to be settled at foreign minister level – or higher still.
Diplomats
add the hostage crisis unfolding in Moscow could soften Russia's
resistance.
Opposition
to strikes against Iraq ,which the U.S. is framing as part of the war
against terrorism, would be hard to sustain by a Russia trying to
stamp out what it describes as terrorism within its own borders.
As
the diplomatic maneuvering intensified, British and U.S. officials got
down the arduous task of cajoling and persuading – and they began
counting heads on the largely skeptical full security council, as they
make an effort to line up the seven additional votes they need.
They
are confident of four or five already and believe other potential
supporters are waiting for France to show its hand.
Surprisingly,
a prominent player in the maneuvering could be Mexico, which has
currently some serious disputes with the U.S., and is keen to show to
the rest of the countries that it is not a mere creature of
Washington.
Attention,
meanwhile, shifted to Washington, where the U.S. kept up its pressure
on the world body to act as the U.S. draft continued to draw
criticism.
U.S.
ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte had the council secretariat
publish his draft resolution as an official document at the start of
Friday's talks, a step usually taken just before a vote.
But
diplomats said in this case it appeared to be a procedural maneuver to
prevent any other member getting in first with an alternative draft,
and noted that the text could still be amended.
"We
went through our draft with other members of the council. We heard
their views and we are going to take them on board," deputy U.S.
ambassador James Cunningham said.
With
a two-day lull at the United Nations, attention moved south to
Washington, where several thousand marchers were, meanwhile, preparing
to converge Saturday to protest preemptive U.S.-led military strikes
on Iraq.
The
event organizers said some 100,000 protesters would show up for the
event, although Washington police spokesman Quentin Peterson said the
protesters requested a permit for only 20,000 marchers.
The
organizers promised it would be the largest anti-war demonstration
since the Vietnam era in the early 1970s.
"The
people of the United States can stop the war. They have done it before
and they can do it now," said Mara Verheyden-Hillard, one of the
event organizers.
The
organizers said similar protests were scheduled Saturday in San
Francisco and Chicago, as well as cities in Mexico, Japan, Spain,
Germany, South Korea, Belgium and Australia.
The
demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco are organized by a
coalition of anti-war, social justice and civil rights groups.
Event
speakers include rights advocate Jesse Jackson, former U.S. Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, and Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia.
"We
feel this war is unjustified and unjust," said Michel Shehadeh,
another event organizer, who represents a pro-Palestinian group.
Clark,
U.S. Attorney General from 1967 to 1969 under then-president Lyndon
Johnson, has traveled to Baghdad frequently to protest U.S. sanctions.
Bush
said he would reject any resolution curbing his ability to force Iraq
to disarm.
"We
won't accept a resolution which prevents us from doing exactly what I
have told the American people is going to happen," Bush said at a
joint appearance in Texas with visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
"If
the UN won't act, and if Saddam won't disarm, we will lead a coalition
to disarm him," he said, referring to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein.
China,
another permanent council member, wants to avoid misunderstandings
about wording in the U.S. draft which declares Iraq "in material
breach" of its obligations under council Resolution 687, which
set the terms of the February 1991 ceasefire to end the Gulf War,
ambassador Wang Yingfan said.
"We
have our reservations about 'material breach'. We do not wish to have
any wording which is unclear," Wang said.
In
Baghdad, Iraq's ruling Baath party urged Security Council members to
thwart the draft resolution, charging its unrealistic conditions
served merely as a pretext for a U.S. attack on Saddam Hussein's
regime under a U.N. cover.
"The
provisions of the American draft are not just ... unrealistic. They
have been deli berately crafted to create a pretext for aggression
against Iraq under an international cover," said the party's
mouthpiece, the newspaper Ath-Thawra.
Washington
is seeking to include provisions that would make it impossible for
Iraq to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors, thus enabling it to
resort to "the so-called automatic use of force" against
Baghdad, the paper said.
It
said that by blocking the U.S. draft, council members would "tilt
the balance toward a peaceful settlement" of the standoff over
Iraq's disarmament.
An
estimated 5,000 people protested U.S. Iraq police in late September,
and some 20,000 people gathered in New York's Central Park to protest
a possible war in early October.
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