March 6, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 2, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 5: The ambassador of France in Islamabad, Yannick Gerard, said a war (in Iraq) would rock the international order by undermining collective security and multilateralism by the primacy accorded to the doctrine of pre-emptive action over the principle of legitimate defence.

While delivering a lecture at the Department of History of the Quaid-i-Azam University here on Wednesday afternoon, the French envoy deliberated at length about the Iraq crisis and the position of France as well as that of the European Union.

Referring to a draft tabled on February 24 by the British, Americans and Spanish, the French envoy said in the present circumstances a second resolution in the UN Security Council has no justification.

“France rejects the automatic recourse implied by this second resolution as it is not justified at a time when all the means of peacefully achieving Iraq’s disarmament have not yet been explored,” Mr Gerard said.

He warned that a military intervention at a time when all the possibilities of achieving a peaceful solution have not been explored, would divide the international community.

“It would be perceived as precipitate and illegitimate. The debates of the past few days at the UN and recent demonstrations across the world have shown that a decision to resort to force in the present situation would be widely misunderstood and arouse a wave of suspicion,” the French envoy said.

He said while Iraqi regime is obviously a matter of concern, this must not mask other equally fundamental problems. “The Middle East will never know peace so long as a just and harmonious solution has not been found for the Israeli- Palestinian conflict,” Mr Gerard said.

“This region does not need a new war but a political settlement, based on the rule of law. At a time when the international community is intent on settling the issue of Iraqi disarmament, it must display the same determination to settle the Middle East crisis, which is of critical importance,” the French envoy said.

The French envoy warned that a war in Iraq would weaken the coalition against terrorism.

“An international community was created against terrorism in wake of September 11. A war would weaken that coalition. It would provoke an upsurge in terrorism at the very time when we need precisely to fight this scourge which threatens us all, over there as here,” Mr Gerard said.

He said France believed in a collective international action in the battle against terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and organized crime.

About the situation in Iraq the French envoy said there had been progress in the conduct of the inspections by the UN Inspectors. “But we have to go further and on February 10 France made proposals to boost the effectiveness of the inspections while urging Iraqis to cooperate fully.

“In New York, we, with the German and Russian governments, tabled a second memorandum putting forward some new proposals, seeking two objectives: firstly, to list, in order of priority, disarmament questions to date unresolved and, secondly, to establish, sphere by sphere, time scales enabling us to speed up the disarmament,” Mr Gerard said.

He said it was not certain if the path of war would be shorter than that of the inspections. “Nor can anyone say for certain that it could lead to a safer, fairer and more stable world. Since war is always an admission of failure,” the French envoy said.

Nevertheless, he said, France had never ruled out the use of force to enforce the law but the use of force is not justified in the present circumstances since there was a credible and effective alternative to war i.e. to disarm Iraq through the inspections.

The French envoy also said the emergence of a multipolar world was an important objective for France. “A unipolar world would be a nightmare. We work for the emergence of a world where you would have several centres of power. These several centres of powers would interact in a cooperative spirit, not in a confrontational way. They would work in favour of a fairer and more just globalisation. The present one is hardly acceptable,” Mr Gerard said.

He added to encourage dialogue between civilisations and cultural diversity was also extremely important to avoid a unipolar world or clashes between blocks of countries.