Print

Mail

wiki links

US steps up its campaign for tough Iraq resolution

Washington sought to clear the path for a UN resolution threatening Iraq with military action yesterday as a senior US diplomat arrived in Paris for talks aimed at winning French support.

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman planned to meet officials in Paris before flying today to Russia, which, like France, is a veto-holding permanent member of the UN Security Council and wary of giving Washington a green light for war.

Days before Washington is due to unveil the text of its draft resolution to fellow Security Council members, diplomatic sources said Grossman was to hold talks later yesterday at the Foreign Ministry and at President Jacques Chirac's Elysee Palace.

The US has already won British support for a draft resolution warning Iraq of serious consequences if it did not comply with disarmament demands but faces an uphill struggle to win round other permanent Security Council members -- Russia, France and China.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said yesterday there was no clear proof in Britain's dossier published this week on Iraq that Baghdad had chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

French officials announced on Thursday Paris had won the backing of China, the other permanent Security Council member, for its two-step approach based on a first resolution on the return of arms inspectors followed only later by a second one laying out consequences if Baghdad blocks the inspectors' work.

"We have to try everything before war," Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told French television late on Thursday.

"Today, we need UN [arms] inspectors to go to Iraq, without any restrictions, and apply UN resolutions so we can evaluate the risk there."

No text is expected to be unveiled to the 15-nation Council until Monday. The US draft would find Iraq in violation of previous UN resolutions, specify what it must do to comply with them and determine what consequences will flow from Iraq's failure to take action.

"We are a long way from getting agreement, but we are working hard," Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.

Saddam agreed last week to allow UN weapons inspectors back without conditions after an absence of nearly four years but the US, whose declared policy is to seek the Iraqi leader's removal, said he could not be trusted.

Yet both Russia and France believe his sincerity must at least be tested with an attempt to undertake the inspections.

"It would now be an unforgivable error to delay the dispatch of international monitors to Iraq," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said in Moscow.

He said a dossier of evidence of Iraqi moves to amass weapons of mass destruction published by Britain this week provided "no clear proof," adding that only UN inspectors could determine that.

In a broadcast on Iraqi television, Saddam's eldest son, Uday, said the US quest to oust his father's government was to get hold of the country's vast oil reserves.

"Do not imagine that they [Americans] will let you alone, because you are sitting on the [world's] number one oil reserve," Uday was quoted as saying on Thursday night by al- Shabab television, which he owns.

According to Iraq's figures, the country has a proven oil reserve of around 113 billion barrels.

This story has been viewed 1608 times.