January 28, 2003	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 24, 1423

BERLIN, Jan 27: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder criticized on Monday Washington’s position on Iraq, saying it was hard to explain to Europeans why the Gulf state was not treated the same as North Korea.

North Korea has weapons of mass destruction and “has expelled weapons inspectors from the United Nations”, Schroeder said during a speech to the Friedrich Ebert political foundation in Berlin.

Despite that, he said, negotiations continue with Pyongyang and they “try to find a solution through dialogue” and that difference is “difficult to explain to the people” of Europe.

Schroeder added that Germany was in favour of extending the mandate of the weapons inspectors in Iraq, as the inspectors themselves have requested, and called on Baghdad to improve its cooperation with the United Nations.

CHIRAC: French President Jacques Chirac reiterated on Monday that United Nations weapons inspectors should be given more time to work in Iraq, calling on the Iraqi government to give them its “full and entire cooperation”.

Chirac was reacting to the inspectors’ report presented to the security council earlier in the day.

“The president was informed of the conclusions of the report presented today to the Security Council by Misters Blix and ElBaradei. He is favourable to the inspectors continuing their work. They must benefit from the full and entire cooperation of Iraq,” said a spokeswoman for Chirac.

PUTIN: Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that UN inspections must be allowed to continue, during a telephone conversation on Monday.

Putin “stressed on the need to continue the work of international inspectors in line with UN Security Council resolutions,” a Kremlin statement said.

“As with the resolution of other international problems, you have to make full use of coordinated political and diplomatic efforts to remove the international community’s concerns,” the statement quoted him as saying.

Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko reaffirmed Russia’s view that the UN inspection team must receive all the time necessary to establish whether or not Iraq is defying a UN resolution to disarm.

“Only the inspections can answer the question as to whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. That’s why we believe the inspectors must pursue their work in Iraq,” he said in a statement.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said it would be wrong to regard the delivery of the reports as “the final limit for the international inspectors.”

“UN Security Council resolution 1441 does not set any time limit for international inspections in Iraq,” he said referring to a November resolution mandating weapons inspections.

“They should continue for as long as it takes” to clarify whether the Iraqis are obeying UN resolutions, he said.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, said meanwhile that political and diplomatic resources for resolving the Iraqi crisis were “far from exhausted.”

“The inspectors have done excellent work in two months, and I think they must be given the possibility of completing their task. Only then should we consider the next step,” Lavrov said in an interview with the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

“The Iraqi authorities are not creating any obstacles to the inspectors’ work. And even if there are some questions to be answered, there’s hope that Baghdad will give the answers. In view of the objective facts, there is currently no reason for a military operation,” he said.—

Russia, along with France and China, is insisting on a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iraq’s supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

The United States and Britain maintain that Iraq is in material breach of the UN resolution ordering it to disarm, and are preparing for military action in the coming weeks.

All five countries possess veto power in the UN Security Council.

Defence experts say the United States military build-up in the Gulf region will be completed around the end of February.—AFP / Reuters