All Arabs Oppose Military Strikes on Iraq: Lebanese PM

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 25, 2002

All Arabs Oppose Military Strikes on Iraq: Lebanese PM

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Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Sunday reiterated that all Arab countries stand opposed to possible U.S.-led military strikes against Iraq, while calling on Baghdad to implement relevant United Nations resolutions on the country.

Hariri made the remarks during an exclusive interview with Xinhua at his private residence on the eve of the 14th Arab summit, due to open on Wednesday in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Hariri said that the Arab world has made their stand clear to the U.S., during the just-ended 11-nation tour to the Mideast region by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, that Washington has no excuses to extend the ongoing anti-terror war to Iraq from Afghanistan, as Baghdad has said that it is willing to negotiate with the U.N. to solve the pending issues.

Iraqi negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, recently held a meeting in New York with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Annan described the result of the meeting as "positive," said Aziz, adding that there will be another similar meeting, possibly in April, over the standoff between Iraq, the U.N. and the United States.

Washington has repeatedly threatened to launch military strikes against Iraq if Baghdad continues to refuse the return of U.N. weapons inspectors back to the country to check alleged weapons of mass destruction in the country.

U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the regime under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein be replaced, saying that each country should commit itself to supporting the global anti-terror efforts following the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington.

Most analysts fear that Iraq would be the next target of U.S.- led military strikes as Baghdad still refuses to bow to U.S. pressures to allow the return of U.N. inspectors while insisting that it has no weapons of mass destruction.

Hariri said in the interview that Arabs have been calling for an immediate lifting of the international sanctions against Iraq, imposed on the country after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But the United States has rejected the Arab appeal, he said.

"The Iraqis are not far away from accepting (U.N. inspectors)," said Hariri.

Iraq has been under crippling international sanctions since the Gulf crisis, and Baghdad said that over 1.5 million of Iraqi citizens died of malnutrition and lack of medicine due to the international economic blockade.

The bilateral relations between Iraq and Kuwait, said the prime minister, will be discussed at the Beirut summit, adding that there is no proposal up to now as to how to reconcile the two arch Arab foes.

The Iraq-Kuwait ties topped the 13th Arab summit in Amman, Jordan, in March 2001, which called for reconciliation between the two countries, but with no marked progress reported yet.

The issue of prisoners of war (POWs) has been preventing the two Arab foes from improving ties. While Kuwait claims thousands of Kuwaiti POWs are still under Iraqi custody, Iraq says that it has freed all Kuwaitis captured during its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

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