Tensions between the United States and Europe over the conduct of the ”war on terror” — in particular, how to stop Iran building nuclear weapons — spilled over on Sunday at a high-level security conference.
Sharp differences were exposed and even the usefulness of Nato, the US-dominated institution at the heart of the transatlantic relationship, was questioned.
Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, urged the US on Sunday to embrace the European Union’s diplomatic efforts to ensure Iran did not develop nuclear weapons.
”If the United States were to engage positively, and I’m aware of how difficult that is, it would substantially strengthen the European drive,” he told the annual Munich security conference.
”If the whole process collapsed then we would have to go to the [UN] security council,” he said.
But Fischer suggested that sanctions could strengthen hardline elements in the Iranian government and weaken democrats.
”Iran is not Saddam Hussein,” he said. ”We have there a contradictory mixture of very dark elements and democratic elements.”
But his appeal appeared to fall on deaf ears. Members of the US Congress attending the conference, notably the Republican senator John McCain, who called Iran a ”long-standing sponsor of international terrorism”, made it plain that they had little faith in the EU’s diplomacy.
Gholamali Khoshroo, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said his country had no interest in an arms race. Unlike Israel, which had nuclear weapons, he said, Iran had signed the non-proliferation treaty.
In Tehran, foreign ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi reiterated warnings that the US should not contemplate attacking Iran. ”During the talks with the Europeans, we told them in clear terms to tell their American allies not to play with fire, and the Europeans clearly got our message,” AP reported Asefi as saying.
American calls for Nato to play a security role in Iraq by offering to protect UN operations there were also rejected by Fischer.
”I don’t see any added value for Nato in Iraq,” he said responding to a suggestion from the Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman.
Earlier, Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, called on the US and Europe to set up an international panel to consider the future of the body.
The organisation, he said, was ”no longer the primary venue where transatlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies”.
However, far from questioning Nato’s future its secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, told the conference it could even help enforce a Middle East peace deal. It could ”assist”, once a peace deal had been agreed, with troops, he told the Guardian later.
De Hoop Scheffer has already visited Jordan and is having talks with the Israeli government later this month.
The discussion came 10 days before a Nato summit attended by President Bush and followed what was billed as a conciliatory tour of Europe by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Even Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, adopted a conciliatory tone in Munich, saying: ”By now it must be clear that one nation cannot defeat the extremists alone.”
But Rumsfeld made it clear that the US still believed in the doctrine that ”the mission determines the coalition”: a policy which angers France as well as Germany, and one which means the US decides for itself how to act rather than consult in international organisations.
Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, urged Europe and the US on Sunday to support a radical overhaul of international security to fight terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and regional conflicts.
Annan, who was feted by the Europeans — he was awarded a ”Peace through Dialogue” medal at the Munich conference — but cold-shouldered by Washington, painted a dramatic picture of possible disasters.
”If New York or London or Paris or Berlin were hit by a nuclear terrorist attack, it might not only kill hundreds of thousands in an instant,” he said.
”It could also devastate the global economy, thereby plunging millions into poverty in developing nations.”
Tougher inspection rules, and incentives for nations to abandon uranium enrichment activities that could be used to make nuclear bombs, were steps that needed to be taken, Annan said. – Guardian Unlimited Â