- UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
- Russia and the United States clashed openly on Tuesday about whether
to hold Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's feet to the fire in a new U.N.
Security Council resolution before weapons inspectors return.
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- Moscow's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, told a news conference,
which included Secretary of State Colin Powell, that Iraq's offer to allow
the inspectors to return without conditions made council action unnecessary
at this time.
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- "From our standpoint we don't need any special resolution"
for international inspectors to return, said Ivanov, whose country has
veto power in the 15-nation Security Council.
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- "All necessary decisions about that are on hand,"
he said, referring to past council resolutions. Russia has veto power in
the 15-nation Security Council.
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- The United States, whose declared policy is to seek Saddam's
removal, vowed to work for a tough new U.N. resolution after Iraq announced
on Monday it was ready to allow the return of inspectors after barring
them for nearly 4 years.
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- While Washington speaks of "regime change,"
many countries are seizing on Iraq's offer, conveyed in a letter to U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as a justification to avert a U.S. military
strike.
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- But Powell said Iraq's short letter did not acknowledge
"the error of its ways for the past 12 years." Instead Baghdad
was responding to President Bush's tough speech in the U.N. General Assembly
last Thursday, he said.
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- "The only way to ensure that it is not business
as usual, and to make sure that it is not a repeat of the past, it seems
to me, anyway, is to put it in the form of a new U.N. resolution,"
Powell said."
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- "These are issues that have to be discussed now
and not at some future time," he said at the news conference following
a meeting of international mediators on the Middle East.
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- ANNAN TAKES MIDDLE COURSE
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- Annan took a middle course. He agreed with Ivanov that
the "only way to disarm Iraq was to have the inspectors on the ground."
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- But he said Security Council members could not return
to "business as usual" given Iraq's past history. "So we
should take steps to assure the inspectors are able to go about their work
unimpeded with the full cooperation," Annan said.
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- The Security Council met on Tuesday but members said
there was no extensive discussion on Iraq. With many foreign ministers
in New York for the General Assembly session, talks about Iraq are taking
place in corridors.
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- France wants to hold off until later a resolution to
authorize the use of military force, depending on how the weapons inspections
proceed.
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- "I think that, already, all the elements that are
needed to act are there," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
told reporters late on Monday, an apparent reference to existing resolutions.
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- The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, just before
a U.S.-British bombing blitz designed to punish Baghdad for its alleged
failure to cooperate with them.
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- Bush administration officials prefer one resolution that
would require Iraq's complete cooperation for inspections and refer to
consequences if Baghdad did not comply, thereby leaving Washington to decide
if and when a military assault was necessary.
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- ARAB RELIEF
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- "This is the beginning of a process of easing the
tensions," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said on Tuesday.
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- Calling Iraq's decision a positive step, Jordan's foreign
minister, Marwan Muasher, told reporters, "The letter is clear and
we should take it at face value."
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- Arab countries, which view Israel's occupation of Palestinian
and other Arab lands as a greater threat to regional stability than Iraq,
are wary of any attack on Baghdad that lacks Security Council authorization.
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- Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, welcomed
the news and said he was ready for immediate talks in New York on the practical
arrangements for the resumption of inspections.
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- Under the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire terms, the inspectors
must verify the dismantling of any Iraqi programs for biological, chemical
and nuclear weapons, and long-range missiles, before sanctions can be suspended.
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- The Iraqi letter from Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said
Baghdad wanted to fulfill council resolutions and to "remove any doubts
that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction."
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- It said this was a first step toward a "comprehensive
solution" that should include the lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed
for Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
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- Blix has a staff of 63 in New York, some of whom could
go to Baghdad quickly to analyze Iraq's chemical, biological and missile
programs. Two hundred trained experts from 44 nations are on call and could
be put to work within weeks.
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- Nuclear arms inspectors are handled by the Vienna-based
International Atomic Energy Commission.
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