MUNICH, Germany, 10 February 2003 — European states including Germany and Belgium yesterday issued challenges to US plans for war on Iraq by announcing a peace proposal for UN consideration and blocking NATO aid.
The moves came as top UN inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed El-Baradei held the second of two days of talks in Baghdad during which Iraqi officials handed them documents said to pertain to Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Iraq has provided the United Nations with documents on anthrax and its Al-Fatah and Al-Sumoud missiles, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix announced.
A tense few days lie ahead as officials around the world digest the developments ahead of an all-important UN Security Council briefing by Blix and El-Baradei on Friday.
Washington and its main ally Britain immediately spoke out against a peace plan German Defense Minister Peter Struck said would be submitted as a draft resolution to the Security Council the same day as the inspectors’ update.
The plan reportedly calls for the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Iraq, a tripling in the number of UN inspectors there and making the entire Gulf state a no-fly zone.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the proposal dealt with the “wrong issues” and would serve only as a “diversion.”
US President George W. Bush, in West Virginia for talks with congressional Republicans, said the Security Council would have to make up its mind soon. “The United Nations gets to decide shortly whether or not it is going to be relevant in terms of keeping the peace, whether or not its words mean anything,” Bush said.
“But one thing is certain — for the sake of peace and the sake of security, the United States and our friends and allies, we will disarm Saddam Hussein if he will not disarm himself.”
Britain’s armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, said: “Progress cannot be made by giving Saddam Hussein more time or by pouring in more inspectors.”
Struck, speaking on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich, said the proposal was a joint initiative by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac.
Schroeder would outline its contents to the German Parliament on Thursday as “common thoughts for concrete peaceful alternatives to a military resolution of the conflict,” according to German officials.
“We hope this initiative will be favorably received by the UN Security Council on Feb. 14,” Struck said. But in Paris, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said there was no defined Franco-German plan as such.
Russia and Belgium said they may support the proposal as set out by Struck.
Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel added to the opposition to Washington by saying his country would use its NATO veto to block the alliance from bolstering defenses in Turkey — complicating US attempts to use Iraq’s neighbor as a launching pad for part of its invading force.
Speaking on Belgian television, he said a letter would be sent to NATO Secretary-General George Robertson informing him of the decision. “We are in the process, with France and also, I think, Germany, to write this letter to again exercise our right of veto,” Michel said.
Powell said such a veto would be “inexcusable”. If used, it would halt a NATO “silent” procedure under which the defense material would be provided automatically unless a veto was called before 0900 GMT today.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview Russia does not support the US goal of removing Saddam Hussein from power and believes a unilateral US military strike would be a “big mistake.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told a press conference in Berlin yesterday Germany and Russia agree that the “system of controls and sanctions in Iraq” must be improved.
The differences have laid bare stark divisions in NATO and the UN Security Council — institutions over which the United States once held great influence, even dominance.
Permanent veto-wielding Security Council members are split into two camps: The United States and Britain advocating early military action against Iraq, and China, France and Russia saying diplomacy is not yet exhausted.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Blix and El-Baradei met with Iraq’s Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan after concluding the second round of talks with Iraqi arms experts. El-Baradei had expressed hope of meeting Saddam Hussein, but Baghdad said no such meeting was scheduled.
Iraq said yesterday it hoped to resolve in the coming days a deadlock with UN weapons inspectors over surveillance flights by U-2 spy planes over its territory.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri arrived in the Iranian capital yesterday for an unscheduled 24-hour visit, Iranian Foreign Ministry officials said.
As the diplomacy gathered pace to avert a war Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met the Syrian and Libyan leaders in Egypt yesterday, as well as Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal.
Mubarak hosted the mini-summit on the Iraq crisis in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh yesterday even as he acknowledged that Arab governments were powerless to stop a US-led war.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and Syrian President Bashar Assad attended the meeting, along with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and Arab League chief Amr Moussa.
Mubarak was keen to discuss “ways of avoiding war in Iraq and finding a peaceful solution to the crisis”, a presidential aide said. But the Egyptian leader later acknowledged the limited room for maneuver of Arab states.
“We would make ourselves a laughing stock if we thought we could postpone a war,” Mubarak told state television.
“There is the (US) Congress and administration, a (UN) Security Council, a British Parliament, they are the ones that can bring forward a war, wage war or postpone it,” he said, when asked if the talks under way could stop a conflict.
In Washington, the Pentagon announced the activation of a plan to lease passenger and cargo aircraft from commercial airlines to ferry US troops and material to the Gulf. (Agencies)
