Pressure mounted on Iraq on Sunday to let weapons inspectors return, ahead of an intense week of UN diplomacy to form a resolution tough enough for US demands.
Arab foreign ministers urged Iraq to accept the return of weapons inspectors in order to avoid war, as US officials stepped up pressure for determined action by the United Nations Security Council.
”We want Iraq to implement the Security Council resolutions which will end the current crisis” over Iraq’s failure to admit arms inspectors, said Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud, speaking on behalf of Arab foreign ministers who met Saturday with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York.
However, Saudi Arabia, which has been an outspoken opponent of military action against Iraq, said on Sunday it would bow to any UN endorsement of a strike on Iraq.
”If the United Nations takes a decision, by the Security Council, to implement a policy of the UN, every country that has signed the charter of the UN has to fulfill it,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told CNN.
Saudi Arabia, which was a launching pad in the 1991 Gulf war, had said it would not allow its territory to be used for any unilateral US attack.
And in an interview, with the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, Prince Saud urged Iraq to agree to weapons inspections to spare its people from war.
”Since Iraq says it does not possess weapons of mass destruction and has no plans to produce any, why doesn’t it agree to the return of inspectors to settle the issue which will go to Security Council,” the prince said.
Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he would tour the Middle East this week to gather support for an initiative to persuade Iraq to allow the inspectors back.
The United States emphasised on Sunday that the United States wants the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that gives Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ”weeks” to comply with past resolutions on the destruction of its weapons.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told media that ”the international community is unified on this issue” and that Washington was confident the United Nations would determine Saddam to be in breach of his commitments.
”And I hope, and this is the key part, that the UN will then say, ‘we’re going to take action if he fails to take action. That’s what we’re looking for,” said Powell, who is due back in New York on Monday for more consultations with Security Council permanent members and other key states.
UN weapons inspectors were withdrawn in 1998 from Iraq, but the chief inspector Hans Blix said his team could begin examining Iraq’s arsenals within two weeks if Baghdad gave permission.
However Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri again insisted that any new inspections be tied to the lifting of 12-year-old UN sanctions.
”We accept the resolutions. We did not expel the inspectors, they were withdrawn. Their return can only be part of applying UN resolutions,” Sabri insisted on German television.
”Iraq’s sovereignty must be respected, and the inspections must result in the easing of sanctions against Iraq and the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, particularly in Israel,” he said.
In a speech on Sunday to the UN General Assembly Syrian Foreign Minister Faruk Al-Shara defended Baghdad, noting that Israel has defied the United Nations more times than Iraq.
Al-Shara denounced ”Israeli defiance of international legitimacy,” saying Israel had ignored 28 council resolutions and ”hundreds” of other UN decisions.
Jordan and Bahrain, the only other Arab states to address the Assembly on Sunday, made similar, if more muted, remarks.
Baghdad media lashed out at US President George Bush on Sunday branding him a ”liar, son of a liar.” Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan warned the United States that their interests in the Middle East would be at risk in any war.
US Congressman Nick Rahall, in Iraq as part of a visiting delegation, urged the Iraqi National Assembly on Sunday to accept arms inspectors as ”the way to avoid war.”
Top US officials meanwhile, stepped up accusations that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was linked to terrorism.
While US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said Iraq ”clearly” has links with terrorism that include al-Qaida, Powell said there was ”no smoking gun that would link the regime in Baghdad to 9/11.”
Britain’s Sunday Telegraph said a dossier to be released by Prime Minister Tony Blair on September 24 would contain evidence that Saddam’s regime had trained al-Qaida operatives.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in an interview with the BBC the dossier would wrap up data about Saddam’s chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities.
”What the dossier will do is give further and better particulars about the nature of this regime,” he added.
But Newsweek Magazine found that Americans may not need more convincing.
The weekly found that 67% of those polled favored a strike on Iraq, up five percentage points from just two weeks ago. – Sapa-AFP