|
An emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers opened in Cairo Sunday morning in a bid to avoid a looming war on Iraq.
Foreign ministers from 20 Arab countries and representatives from Oman and Mauritania attended the meeting, which was said to focus on the Iraqi standoff and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In addition, visiting Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, also took part in the meeting.
The ministerial meeting adopted a final resolution rejecting US aggression against Iraq and any Iraqi threats against neighboring Kuwait at the end of their meeting here.
In the resolution, the ministers called for the safeguarding of Iraq's territorial integrity and security and rejected any menace to the security of the whole Arab world.
It reaffirmed that the Arab countries considers any threat to the security and safety of any Arab country to be a threat to the national security of all Arab countries as well as to international peace and security.
They welcomed confidence-building between Iraq and the UN inspectors based on Iraqi cooperation with the inspectors with the aim of concluding their mission as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi Sunday has criticized the double standard policy pursued by Washington in anti-terrorism.
Speaking at a press conference, Kharrazi said that Washington initiated war against al-Qaeda for its terrorist record on the one hand, and supported an outfit such as the anti-Iran "terrorist" People's Mujaheddin Organization (MKO) on the other.
"The US administration's mentality is that 'either you are with us or against us', which means there are both good or bad terrorism, or in other words al-Qaeda network is bad, but the Mojahedin Khalq Organization is not bad because it does not jeopardize the US interests," Kharrazi said.
He urged the United States to hear the voice of anti-war demonstrators throughout the world calling for shift on the gear of war and pursuit of dialog and peace.
The Turkish government will convene on Sunday to discuss a motion on a US request to deploy its troops on the Turkish soils in preparation for a war on Iraq.
As a US-led war on Iraq looms large, Turkey has been under mounting pressure from the United States to give the green light to the deployment of US troops and open the so-called northern front.
Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul is set to hold the meeting to give a finishing touch to the motion on the deployment and the dispatch of Turkish troops to northern Iraq.
He met with Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis on the matter last week, while US President George W. Bush urged the Turkish parliament to make a final decision on Feb. 18 following the annual Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice).
In Baghdad, United Nations inspectors Sunday visited a military facility north of the Iraqi capital and tagged Iraqi Al Samoud missiles, which were cited as the evidence of Iraq's violation of UN resolutions.
A missile team of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) went to a military storage in the Taji area, 40 km north of Baghdad, and tagged four newly-produced Al Samoud missiles to indicate they were tracked, a UNMOVIC Spokesman said in a statement.
Speaking at a ceremony inaugurating a new memorial facility for the al-Amiriya shelter, where 407 Iraqi civilians were killed by US bombings during the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said the latest reports on Iraq's disarmament to the UN Security Council by chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have confirmed Baghdad's cooperation with the UN mission.
"For the past three months, the UN weapons inspectors have been doing their job in a natural and normal way with a comprehensive cooperation of the Iraqi side," Ramadan said.
"When Iraq decided to accept (UN Security Council) Resolution 1441 at the end of last year and the resumption of inspections in Iraq, it wanted to show the whole world that it was free of weapons of mass destruction," Ramadan added.
After the one-day emergency foreign ministers meeting of Arab countries, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa held a joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud, whose country currently chairs the Arab League.
Moussa noted that the Arab foreign ministers have decided to setup a special committee to study and decide the date of an announced emergency Arab summit meeting on Iraqi issue.
The foreign ministers meeting has set up a special meeting to review a proper time to hold the summit meeting, he said, adding the committee includes Moussa himself, Hammoud and some Egyptian officials.
Earlier in the day, Egypt's state-run al-Ahram newspaper noted that an emergency Arab summit on the Iraqi issue will be held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Feb. 27.
"The date has been set, given that some Arab leaders will attend a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Malaysia on Feb. 20-25," it added.
The emergency summit was called to be held at a time when France and Germany are leading an alliance to try to avert a war with Iraq.
Local analysts said the 22-member Arab League is willing to join in the European efforts to defuse the regional tension.
The United States accuses Iraq of secretly developing weapons of mass destruction and is pouring tens of thousands of troops into the Gulf region to back up its threats to disarm Baghdad by force.
Arab countries have called for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis, fearing that any war on Iraq would further destabilize an already worsening regional situation.
(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2003)
|
