Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Thursday he would be meeting the ambassadors of Russia, France and China to discuss the United Nations’ handling of the Iraqi situation.
The three countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council, together with the United States and the United Kingdom. Pahad’s meeting with them is to take place on Friday.
”We want to get a sense of their thinking,” Pahad told journalists in Pretoria. ”We can’t work in a vacuum… That doesn’t mean we don’t talk to the Americans and the Britons.”
To only talk to those two was not sufficient, he added.
”The key is how to support all of those who want to prevent another war in the region.”
South Africa welcomed the Iraqi government’s unconditional acceptance of the presence of UN weapons inspectors, as well as reports that the first meeting between Iraqi experts and the UN inspector team in Vienna had gone well, Pahad said.
”We have always insisted Iraq must implement UN Security Council resolutions in relation to the weapons of mass destruction.”
Even though he believed that none of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s palaces could house such weapons, Pahad said South Africa hoped that the palaces would not be excluded from the inspections.
The Non-Aligned Movement was in favour of moving towards removing sanctions against Iraq, where a human tragedy was cause for concern. Barry Moolman, deputy director for Gulf states in the foreign affairs department, said the humanitarian crisis was enormous.
”One shouldn’t lose sight of the ordinary people. Youngsters are paying a tremendous price for something in which they had no part… The country was knocked … from the 20th century way back to the 19th.”
Pahad said South Africa’s concern was that another conflict might worsen this. The threat of war was already influencing international markets.
”We are convinced that the region will explode if things are not dealt with through the processes of the United Nations.”
Besides, he said: ”Nobody is putting forward what will happen after Saddam. That question needs to be answered.”
Pahad was to leave for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday for a meeting of South African ambassadors of the region. This was to ensure a more co-ordinated approach to the Iraqi situation and that of Israel and the Palestinians, he said. The trip would also include official visits to Oman and Iran.
The government wanted to encourage the South African private sector to seize opportunities in those countries, and thereby narrow the balance of trade, especially with Iran.
”We want to believe that… the conditions are right for the private sector to go into the Middle East and the Persian Gulf area.”
The arms manufacturer Denel was already active in the UAE. Together with a local partner, it was one of the last two bidders short listed to be awarded a $2-billion contract for the land maintenance of the UAE’s armed forces.
UN restrictions forbade the sale of category one weapons — offensive, lethal arms — to Iran.
Pahad pointed out that Iran had also been designated a rogue state by the US. The government would talk to the US to get a better understanding of what weaponry could be sold to Iran without the US imposing sanctions on the companies involved.
One of the matters to be addressed at the meeting with the South African heads of mission would be how South African expatriates in the countries of the region could contribute to key aspects of their motherland’s economy. In the UAE alone there were 15 000 of them.
”We want to break the image that every South African that has left South Africa is hostile to South Africa… We want a strategic approach,” Pahad said. – Sapa