Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said on Friday that force should only be used against Iraq in ”extreme circumstances”.
Angola is one of six non-permanent members of the UN Security Council which have yet to state their voting intentions on a draft resolution that would authorise the use of force against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
”We favour dialogue. We will only allow the use of force in extreme circumstances,” Dos Santos said at the opening of a summit of former Portuguese colonies in Africa.
”We believe that any solution should be in line with the resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Dos Santos said, adding that ”whatever the answer, it must safeguard the interests of the Iraqi people”.
Britain, a co-sponsor of the resolution, has this week intensely lobbied the undecided nations to back it, while France has urged them to abstain or to vote against the resolution.
Dos Santos’ statement indicated that if the tough new resolution goes to the vote in the Security Council, Angola will not necessarily align with the United States, Britain and Spain -‒ the resolution’s co-sponsors.
Nine of the Council’s 15 members need to vote in favour of the resolution for it to pass. Bulgaria has sided with the resolution’s co-sponsors, while France and Russia have threatened to veto the measure and drawn Syria, China and Germany to their side.
With Washington warning it may bypass the UN Security Council and go to war alone, France’s ambassador to the UN late Thursday said the six uncommitted non-permanent members were working on new proposals to break the deadlock.
Presidents Pedro Pires of Cape Verde, Kumba Yala of of Guinea-Bissau and Fradique de Menezes of Sao Tome and Principe were in Luanda for the summit, which officials said would be devoted mainly to a political crisis in Guinea-Bissau.
Angola’s Foreign Minister Joao Bernardo de Miranda on Monday said that ”war is inevitable”, adding that the world needed to prepare for the aftermath of the conflict.
”What the international community needs to do now is prepare for what comes after the war,” de Miranda told a press conference with his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin, on a lightning visit to Angola and Africa’s two other Security Council members, Cameroon and Guinea, to lobby support against the resolution.
”The position of Angola is to back neither France nor the United States,” de Miranda said.
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner went to Luanda at the end of February to press the Angolan government to back Washington’s hardline stance over Iraq.
Angola’s own 27-year civil war ended in April last year and the government has asked for a massive input of international aid to help rebuild the country.
Diplomatic sources in Luanda said that the United States has been exercising pressure regarding a donor conference the Angolan government has been asking for since the end of the conflict.
The summit of the Portuguese group of nations was expected to wind up here on Saturday. – Sapa-AFP