UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25: As the 15-member UN Security Council moved towards the end game on Iraq, Pakistan said on Monday that “the stability of the region should be kept in mind while considering various proposals on disarming Baghdad now on the table.”
“If the spirit of Atlantic alliance was still alive, we could hope to see a reconciliation of the two approaches with a view to achieving accelerated peaceful disarming of Iraq,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram told the Security Council as it met to consider the US-British resolution co-sponsored by Spain and a memorandum of proposals presented by the French side with concurrence of Russia and China.
Mr Akram said that “Pakistan is concerned about the welfare of the Iraqi people, preservation of its unity, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Iraq.”
The one-page draft resolution, submitted on Monday by the United States, Britain and Spain, did not set any deadlines, though officials made clear they want the Security Council to decide by mid-March “that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it in Resolution 1441,” which was adopted unanimously by the council on Nov 8.
While the resolution does not specifically ask the council to sanction war, adopting the draft would be tantamount to Security Council authorization for a military campaign, diplomats here believed.
France, Russia and Germany, which oppose the military option, circulated a four-month plan to pursue a peaceful disarmament of Iraq through strengthened inspections.
Under that plan, inspections would extend beyond July 1, when the heat would make fighting more difficult. That memorandum won immediate backing from China, despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s lobbying efforts with top officials in Beijing earlier this week.
Getting approval for the US-backed resolution will be an uphill task. To pass, the resolution must have nine “yes” votes without a veto by France, Russia or China. Only Bulgaria supports the US-British resolution.
Eleven of the 15 council members have endorsed continued weapons inspections, but the US has dispatched top negotiators to the capitals of Security Council members in recent days to push for the resolution.
Diplomats here say that some of the countries, such as Angola, Guinea and Cameroon, supporting the resolution may reap financial benefits from the United States.
US Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte said if Iraq were to avoid serious consequences, it must demonstrate “a major, drastic, dramatic change in the attitude” it has shown toward ridding itself of weapons of mass destruction.
Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Yingfan said that his country would study the draft US-British Security Council resolution aimed at paving the way for war against Iraq even though it preferred strengthening UN inspections instead. “China will study that draft very carefully,” Wang said.
But Beijing “fully agreed” with the memorandum put forward by France, Russia and Germany proposing a path to peaceful disarmament, Wang added. “That’s the majority’s view.”
President Bush has said time and again that US was ready to wage war without UN support, but backing from the body would bring legitimacy and financial support for military action and its aftermath.
US officials said many of the negotiations on the latest draft will take place at a high level in capitals, rather than among ambassadors at the United Nations.
The new US-UK-Spain draft also recalls that 1441 already found that “Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations” and notes that Iraq’s 12,000-page declaration to UN weapons inspectors in December contained “false statements and omissions.”
A major test for Iraq will come on Saturday by when Baghdad is expected to begin destroying all of Iraq’s Al Samoud 2 missiles, which chief UN inspector Hans Blix said go beyond the range limit set by the Security Council in resolutions adopted after the 1991 Gulf War.