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Security
Council to vote on Iraq's oil-for-food program
within 24 hours
Members
of the United Nations Security Council agreed
Thursday on a draft resolution to adjust the
oil-for-food program for Iraq, with a vote to
be expected within 24 hours, Council President
Gunter Pleuger said.
"It seems
we have found agreement on the resolution ...
so that we will be able to vote
tomorrow," Pleuger told reporters minutes
before British Prime Minister Tony Blair
arrived at UN headquarters for talks with
Secretary General Kofi Annan on the
humanitarian crisis in Iraq.
The President
said he expected all 15 council members to
support the draft and that it would be
"adopted by consensus".
The resolution
"provides for the necessary changes and
adjustments in the oil-for-food program to
enable the Secretariat and the Secretary
General to keep this program going as soon as
the situation on the ground allows it,"
he said.
Critics of the
military action, notably Russia, had opposed
using the humanitarian program as a channel
for emergency war relief, saying it might
legitimize the war.
The program was
suspended when Annan ordered all UN staff to
evacuate from Iraq one day before the outbreak
of the war, which began last week
Blix sees no
evidence Iraq has used banned weapons
Top UN
weapons inspector Hans Blix said Thursday that
he had no evidence from the US-led invading
forces that Iraq had used banned weapons in
the current conflict.
"So far we
have not identified or heard from the allies
that anything that was proscribed would have
been used," he told reporters upon his
arrival at the UN headquarters in New York.
Asked about the
reports that Iraq had used missiles that
exceeded the permitted 150-kilometer range,
Blix said what he had heard from the United
States side was that they "had not seen
any Scud missiles."
Blix, executive
chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification
and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), said his
impression was the missiles used were al-Fatah
with a range of around 150 kilometers or
"a wee bit over."
Asked whether
the use of such missiles was clearly a
violation of UN resolutions, he said, "No
but the inspectors would like to have accurate
information about it."
Blix said he
did not think the Iraqis would use biological
and chemical weapons because then the world
would say they were liars.
"In the
second place, it would also then change the
attitude of the world towards the armed
conflict," he added. "The skepticism
about the armed conflict would, I think, give
way to one of greater understanding."
Under relevant
UN resolutions adopted after Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq is banned from
possessing Scud missiles and other kinds of
missiles with a range exceeding 150
kilometers.
After the start
of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iraq fired
more than a dozen of missiles on Kuwait, some
of which Kuwait claimed were the Scuds.
Germany not
to participate in peacekeeping mission in
post-war Iraq
German
Defense Minister Peter Struck said Thursday
that the country's troops would not
participate in any peace-keeping mission in
post-war Iraq.
"Our
position is clear: there are absolutely no
considerations on deploying German armed
forces in Iraq after the war or plans for them
as UN blue helmets in the time after Saddam
Hussein," Struck was quoted by German
press.
He said that
Germany had already reached the limit of
troops it can send abroad with nearly 10,000
soldiers serving in Afghanistan and the
Balkans.
Struck stressed
that Berlin still wanted the United Nations to
take over responsibility in the post-war Iraq
as soon as possible.
France
emphasizes UN role in post-war Iraq
Visiting
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
said Thursday that the United Nations must
play a key role in rebuilding post-war Iraq.
"The U.N.
must be at the heart of the reconstruction and
administration of Iraq," said De Villepin
told the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in London.
"The
legitimacy of our action depends on it. We
must come together to build peace together in
a region rife with a sense of insecurity and
deep fault lines," De Villepin said.
France's main
priority for post-war Iraq was for the United
Nations to pass a resolution allowing the
country's stalled UN oil-for-food program to
restart, he said, adding that the world's
major powers "must rebuild the world
order shattered by the Iraqi crisis".
He also said
his country was confident that Paris could
rebuild its damaged relations with both
Britain and the United States. "Because
they share common values, the United States
and France will re-establish close cooperation
in complete solidarity," he said.
Relations
between France and Britain have been low since
France strongly opposed a new UN resolution
that would authorize war against Iraq.
Britain and the
United States claimed that it was French
intransigence that had made a second
resolution impossible.
Turkish
consumer organization calls for boycotting US
goods
The
Turkish Association for Protection of
Consumers on Thursday called on the Turkish
people not to buy US and British products.
"The war
(against Iraq) has already started to affect
consumers. As the consumers in Turkey, we
should show that we don't approve of this war
by boycotting US and British products,"
Necati Yenturk, chairman of the association,
told reporters.
The United
States has said it started a military action
against Iraq in order to save the Iraqi people
from dictator Saddam Hussein and give them
freedom, but the claim was not convincing, he
said.
Yenturk said
the war has affected all civilians in Iraq,
including women, children and old people, and
there is currently a tragedy in the country.
He said the
real target of the war is to transfer Iraqi
oil to US and British oil companies.
"So it is
definitely not Turkey's war. Turkey should
never join the war by supporting the United
States and Britain, and it should not help
them to seize the oil of the Iraqi
people," he said.
The United
States and Britain would leave the region in
the end, but Turkey would continue neighborly
relations with the Iraqi people, he said,
adding the burden of the war would be put on
the shoulders of the Turkish and Iraqi
peoples.
According to
public opinion polls, more than 94 percent of
the Turks stand against the US-led war on
Iraq.
Defying
international opposition, the United States
and Britain launched a war against Iraq last
Thursday under the pretext of toppling Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein to disarm Iraq of
weapons of mass destruction.
Iraq has
denounced the US and British invaders as
"criminals" and
"villains," while urging the
international community to stop the
"aggression" unconditionally
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