WASHINGTON, 1 February 2003 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday made his strongest call yet for a fresh UN resolution to approve military action against Iraq as he went into a critical summit with President George W. Bush.

“I think it’s right that we go for a second resolution, because that’s the way of saying that this is an issue that the international community is not going to duck,” he told CNN television ahead of the summit.

The White House has said that a second resolution would be “desirable” but would not stop the United States from launching its own action, if it felt necessary. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer reiterated that Bush believes that UN Security Council Resolution 1441 passed on Nov. 8 and US congressional resolution passed in October are all he needs to go to war.

Blix denied that inspectors had found Iraq was concealing and moving banned weapons materials to Jordan, Syria or other countries to avoid inspections, as US Secretary of State Colin Powell had said, or that Iraqi secret agents were posing as scientists, as Bush has charged.

The chief UN inspector told the Times he had seen no hard evidence that the Iraqi regime was linked to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, as Bush charged in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

In Vienna, the UN’s top nuclear inspector, Mohamed El Baradei, said Iraq would have to show more commitment to arms inspections for him to return before his next report to the world body in mid-February. “We need to make sure there will be progress when we go there,” El Baradei said, adding that UN inspectors must have the right to meet privately with Iraqi scientists and that inspectors must be able to use surveillance aircraft, including American U2 spy planes. Iraq announced Thursday it was inviting El Baradei and Blix to return to Baghdad before Feb. 10 to hold fresh talks on cooperation with the UN mission.

But Iraq ruled out for safety reasons any UN spy planes flying over its territory while US and British warplanes continued patrolling no-fly zones in the north and south of the country.

And US-British warplanes staged their first attack in Iraq’s northern “no-fly” zone in nearly two months yesterday, dropping precision-guided munitions after coming under fire from Iraqi air defenses, the US military said. An Iraqi air defense spokesman said in a statement in Baghdad that one civilian was wounded in the attack near the northern city of Mosul.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said his government is urging the Security Council to grant a “grace period” for Arab governments to make a last-ditch effort to ward off a war. Prince Saud denied that the Kingdom is trying to arrange exile for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a way of avoiding conflict. The Kingdom’s primary concerns, should conflict break out, are how to maintain civil order in a post-war Iraq and protect the country’s territorial integrity, he said. Prince Saud told NBC television he was pleased with the patience Bush was showing with regard to Iraq. In an interview with the “Today” show, taped after the prince’s meeting with Bush on Thursday, Prince Saud said he was “struck by the patience that he (Bush) is showing in dealing with this intricate and difficult question.”

Meanwhile, the sudden expulsion of families from a 30-km (20 mile) border strip between the autonomous Kurdish north and the rest of Iraq has led to speculation that Saddam is clearing a buffer zone to defend against a U. invasion from the north. Within the last 10 to 15 days, Baghdad has reportedly moved forces of the Mujahedeen Khalq — a militant Iranian opposition group under Saddam’s control — near the boundary with the Kurdish zone, said Rasool Razgai, an official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). “It seems like they’re clearing a buffer zone,” says Fawzi Hariri, a KDP spokesman.

The National Security Council of Iraq’s northern neighbor Turkey urged the government yesterday to seek parliamentary approval for “military measures” in case the United States goes to war.

A statement issued after the lengthy meeting did not explicitly call on Parliament to approve the opening of Turkish bases to US forces, permission Washington has sought from its NATO ally. But Turkey has appeared in recent days to be moving toward agreement on the issue. (Agencies)