Ignoring UN in Solving Iraq Case Harmful to Int'l Community: People's Daily

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 27, 2003

Ignoring UN in Solving Iraq Case Harmful to Int'l Community: People's Daily

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Many countries see no reason to stop weapons inspections and resort to force in solving the Iraq crisis, and ignoring the existence of the United Nations would harm the international community and lead to calamity to the whole world, the Chinese official newspaper the People's Daily has said.

An article, carried by the newspaper on Wednesday, said the United Nations is the best universal organization to prevent war, and if the framework and mechanism of the United Nations are ignored, the disorder in international relations and power politics would bring catastrophe to the whole human race.

China and most countries in the world insist that the Iraq issue be solved by political and diplomatic means, which is a highly responsible attitude to the fate of human beings and has been proved effective in clarifying and solving the problem, the article said.

The Iraq issue, which had plunged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) into a crisis, has now been brought to the UN Security Council as the divergence widens between the US-led hard-line group and anti-war countries, the article noted.

The United States, Britain and Spain sought authorization of force by introducing a new draft resolution on Monday, declaring that Iraq had squandered its "final opportunity" to disarm and will face "serious consequences."

On the same day, France submitted a proposal, which was contained in a memorandum that was endorsed by Germany and Russia,calling for the reinforcement of UN inspections. The proposal asks chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to outline a new work program by March 1 and demands that Iraq cooperate fully in carrying it out.

The UN arms inspections, which restarted on Nov. 27, 2002, have been playing a positive role since Security Council Resolution 1441 was adopted on Nov. 8, and some progress has been achieved since then, the article said.

Recently, the Iraqi government has agreed that the UN inspectors can use the U2 surveillance plane in their work and the country's parliament also passed a decree banning the prohibited weapons of mass destruction.

Under such circumstances, a new resolution authorizing military strike against Iraq runs counter to the principle and nature of the UN Charter, to the original intention and ideal of the founders of the organization and to the aspiration for peace of the majority of people all over the world, the newspaper said.

The draft resolution was opposed by many countries such as France, Germany and Russia, which believe that there is no reason for the Security Council to pass a new resolution and that it is unjustifiable to resort to force instead of continuing the current inspection.

Although the international community holds the opinion that Iraq must fully cooperate with the inspectors and there are some questions unanswered, most countries believe the unanswered questions can be settled politically within the framework of the United Nations and resorting to force can only be the last resort.

The article added that war means calamity to the whole world while peace is what all the people want to see and this has been proved by the history of human society.

Therefore, war should be avoided as long as the possibility of peace exists, it said, adding that many issues in the world, including terrorism and national security, can not be solved by force.

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