WASHINGTON, 17 September — Pressure mounted on Iraq yesterday to comply with UN resolutions to disarm as the United States rallied diplomatic backing and Saudi Arabia made clear it would support internationally-sanctioned action.
Saudi Arabia yesterday welcomed US President George W. Bush’s demand calling for a unanimous UN Security Council decision on Iraq and said it would ensure international support. “President Bush’s move to take the Iraq issue to the Security Council is a great step which will ensure international community’s support for (a future) a plan,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said.
In a statement distributed by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, Prince Saud also urged Baghdad to allow the return of UN weapons inspectors to the country. “Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said that the issue of Iraq should be dealt with at the United Nations and not unilaterally,” the prince said and hoped that the Iraqi threat could be removed without any military confrontation.
“The international community’s demand that Iraq must abide by UN resolutions would be a major step toward removing the Iraqi threat,” the prince said. “A unanimous global accord on Iraq would force the Iraqi leadership to comply with the international resolution,” he added.
A senior Saudi official yesterday reiterated his country’s opposition to any unilateral US attack, which had been indicated by a bellicose tone this summer from Washington. “Saudi Arabia rejects any unilateral attack that has no international cover,” said the official, contacted by Reuters in Riyadh from Dubai. “The shift is in the American position, not the Saudi position,” he added, referring to US attempts to lobby the UN Security Council against Iraq rather than act alone.
Arab countries have hardened their tone toward Iraq, warning they could not save Baghdad from a UN-authorized strike if it failed to readmit UN weapons inspectors. Arab foreign ministers earlier this month urged the international community to prevent a US war against Iraq, with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa warning such a conflict would “open the gates of hell” for the Middle East.
However, the Arabs have shifted the burden on Iraq to readmit the inspectors to avoid a strike. Moussa, in New York for the General Assembly, will intensify his contacts with Iraq and the United Nations to boost diplomatic efforts aimed at averting a strike and bringing back the inspectors, his spokesman Hisham Yussef said.
At the United Nations, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said some Arab officials believe Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may be preparing to readmit UN arms inspectors who left his country in 1998. “During the last hours, some Arab countries had the feeling something was going on and that we may be expecting a speech by Saddam Hussein in the coming hours,” Villepin told reporters in New York.
Amid rumors of some kind of reaction or letter expected from Iraq, its foreign minister, Naji Sabri canceled all appointments yesterday, diplomatic sources said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had been scheduled yesterday to see Sabri with a view to persuading him and avert war.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said: “The political dynamic has changed and there’s a great deal of pressure now being placed on Iraq to come into compliance with the UN mandates of the last 12 years.” Powell said he and other members of the Security Council were working on a new resolution on Iraq to be completed “in the not too distant future”. The United States is lobbying for a strong UN resolution demanding that Iraq disarm, preferably with a threat of severe consequences if Iraq does not comply. A US official said the US expected elements of a resolution to be drafted by tomorrow and wanted the measure circulated among the Council members by Friday. (The Independent)
