- (AFP) -- Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said
the United States was poised to strike his country and vowed Baghdad would
retaliate if attacked, amid warnings against unilateral US action from
Russia, the Gulf states, Germany and South Africa.
-
- Moscow also raised the spectre of a Russian veto in the
UN Security Council over strikes on Iraq as it again warned Washington
against launching a military assault to unseat Saddam Hussein's regime.
-
- "The United States is threatening to launch another
large-scale aggression against Iraq," Aziz told world leaders at the
United Nations Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
-
- "We will fight against them. This is our obligation,"
he told reporters earlier.
-
- Aziz said he would meet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
to discuss the stand-off with the United States, telling reporters Iraq
"could consider" a return of UN weapons inspectors to the country
"as part of a comprehensive settlement" with Washington.
-
- "This issue (of weapon inspectors) is not the only
issue. Sanctions, the continuous aggression, threats of war -- all these
issues have to be addressed."
-
- "Let us solve all the problems comprehensively.
There is no crisis between Iraq and the United Nations. The problem is
with the Americans."
-
- He urged world leaders "to stand against this new
(US) aggression" and lift the "unjust" sanctions the international
community imposed on Baghdad 12 years ago.
-
- The United States has threatened to launch a strike against
Iraq in a bid to overthrow Saddam on the grounds that he is pursuing weapons
of mass destruction.
-
- Russia accused US President George W. Bush of harbouring
political motives for seeking to oust Saddam Hussein and warned it could
veto US moves to obtain UN Security Council support for attacks on Baghdad.
-
- "I hope that this question is not raised in the
Security Council, that Russia's veto will not be necessary. We think that
the Iraqi situation can only be resolved through diplomatic means,"
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters.
-
- Russia is an outspoken opponent of US military strikes
on Iraq, which Bush says is part of an "axis of evil" that sponsors
terrorism and is developing weapons of mass destruction.
-
- In one of the harshest condemnations in weeks from Moscow
-- one of the five permanent UN Security Council members -- Ivanov said
Washington was acting from "political" motives and had produced
no evidence to show Iraq was developing nuclear, chemical or biological
weapons.
-
- "There has not been a single well-founded argument
that proves Iraq threatens US national security," he said.
-
- Ministers from the Gulf states, who met to discuss US
threats to overthrow the Baghdad regime, warned an attack would "provoke
revenge and violence in Arab and Islamic countries" and risked plunging
the world into chaos.
-
- Officials for the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council
-- comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates -- said the ministers were expected to urge Baghdad to work
through the UN and allow arms inspectors back.
-
- Former South African president Nelson Mandela said he
would be "appalled" if the US attacked Iraq without UN approval.
-
- "No country must be allowed to take the law into
its own hands. What they are doing is introducing chaos into international
affairs and we condemn that in the strongest terms," he said.
-
- Mandela's successor Thabo Mbeki and German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder also spoke out against US strikes when they met in Johannesburg
on Monday, South African Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad told reporters.
-
- "President Mbeki pointed out that we should continue
to discourage the United States from attacking Iraq... Chancellor Schroeder
said Iraq has to accept UN Security Council resolutions and UN inspectors,"
Pahad said.
-
- Australia said it also saw a "high risk" of
war with Iraq, particularly if Baghdad refused to allow the inspectors
to return.
-
- In oil-rich Iraq itself, President Saddam Hussein accused
the US of seeking to control the oil of the Gulf region, which sits on
the world's largest crude reserves.
-
- "The United States believes it will control the
oil of the Middle East (region) ... which sits on 65 percent of world reserves,
if it destroys Iraq," the official INA news agency quoted him as saying.
-
- Meanwhile the British defence ministry dismissed as speculation
reports that the deployment of its 20,000-tonne aircraft carrier and warships
from nine other nations to the Mediterranean on Monday showed London was
gearing up for war with Iraq.
-
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