PARIS: European and other world leaders are firing public warning shots across Washington’s bow, urgently seeking to forestall any move to make Iraq the next target in the US war on terrorists. “All European nations would view a widening of the conflict with great scepticism, and that is putting it diplomatically,” German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told the Bundestag on Wednesday. It would be “irresponsible to look for new targets.”

“The evidence against Al Qaeda and the Taliban was overwhelming and of a scope needing military intervention, but there is nothing yet to suggest this will be needed in the future” elsewhere, added a well- placed British government official.

The calls for restraint, echoed from Canada to Cairo, reflect fears that the international coalition against terrorism would collapse, and the Middle East be plunged into greater turmoil, if Washington took military action against Iraq. Some of President Bush’s most senior advisers are reportedly urging him to take the war on terrorism to Iraq, once the campaign in Afghanistan has ended.

Aside from Afghanistan, “there is no other nation whose leaders have been active accomplices of terrorist actions,” French defence minister Alain Richard said during a visit to Bulgaria. “So we do not believe that it is today necessary to take military action against other sites.” British Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told a parliamentary committee, meanwhile, that in countries where the government is too weak to stop terrorists operating from its territory, an ”invasive military response” might be needed. But he stressed that the British government had seen no evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda.

Bush’s remarks about Iraq also drew a swift response from Arab leaders. Any attack on an Arab country would have “dangerous repercussions” in the Middle East, warned Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League.

Speaking in Washington, Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher said a US assault on Iraq “will have a negative impact all over. We believe it would be a mistake, particularly at this moment, to resort to using force against Iraq.” —Dawn/LATS Service (c) Christian Science Monitor.