WASHINGTON: The former US president, Jimmy Carter, marked his elevation to the status of Nobel peace laureate on Tuesday by chiding President Bush on his doctrine of pre-emptive war, and urging him to respect the UN’s role in Iraq.

The comments, delivered at the Nobel awards ceremony in Oslo, were the second time that the award has been used as a vehicle for criticism of US preparations for a possible war on Saddam Hussein.

In a speech that deplored the emergence of terror and sectarian conflict since the end of the cold war, Mr Carter said the United Nations — though flawed — remained the best way of ensuring global harmony.

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children,” Mr Carter said.

If there were doubts that Mr Carter was speaking directly to the hawks of the Bush administration, who have argued that a strike on Iraq is essential to eliminating Baghdad as a nuclear threat, the former president dispelled them.

“For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventative war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences,” he said.

Mr Carter prescribed mediation through the UN as a solution to problems such as the environment, as well as Iraq.

Last year the Nobel committee gave the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, the US dollars 950,000 Mr Carter also called for Baghdad to comply with UN demands and eliminate weapons of mass destruction. If it failed to do so, war would be quite likely, he admitted.

Even so, Mr Carter’s comments — and the implied criticism of President Bush — threatened to spark off a second wave of controversy over this year’s peace prize.

The judges outraged conservative opinion in the US two months ago by saying their choice was intended as a deliberate “kick in the leg” for Mr Bush.

Although Mr Carter’s single term presidency in the late 1970s was often dismissed as ineffective, his activities during the last two decades have been held up as a model for a post-presidential career.

Mr Carter’s eponymous centre in Atlanta has emerged as an active player in conflict resolution and elections monitoring in the developing world, and in recent years has taken an increased interest in combating disease in Africa.

Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat won the prize in 1978 for the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, which Mr Carter brokered. Mr Carter also highlighted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and called for Israel to withdraw from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

He said he was disappointed that the presidents who succeeded him failed to capitalise on the Camp David agreements.

“One of the key factors that arouses intense feelings of animosity in the world is the festering problem in the Holy Land, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the inability of Israel to live in peace with its neighbours,” he said.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.