BRUSSELS, Feb 17: The environmental group Greenpeace launched an anti-war operation Monday in the Belgian port of Antwerp in a bid to block ships loaded with war materials from heading to the Gulf.

The group said it hoped to block at least five vessels in the port, which for weeks has served as an important transit stop for US forces amassing men and supplies in areas surrounding Iraq ahead of a possible strike.

“European leaders must take their citizens into account and respect international legislation,” Jan Vande Putte, spokesman for the pressure group, said in a statement released as European Union leaders met on the Iraq crisis in the Belgian capital.

“We are... horrified to see that the United States is ready to use illegal chemical and nuclear weapons against Iraq,” Putte said, adding: “We demand to know if such weapons are transiting through Belgian ports before reaching their destination.”

Greenpeace undertook an earlier anti-war operation in Antwerp, one of the world’s busiest shipping centres, last Friday.

The government in Brussels only recently admitted it allowed US military stationed in Europe — primarily in Germany — to use the Antwerp port to transfer people and materials to the Gulf.

Meanwhile, leaders from the 15 EU countries, joined by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, were meeting to try to bridge wide gaps in their positions on how to deal with Iraq and force disarmament of its alleged stocks of weapons of mass destruction.—AFP