US Secretary of State Colin Powell resumed an intense diplomatic effort to press the United Nations Security Council to act on Iraq and force Saddam Hussein to disarm.
Powell had 16 bilateral and group meetings Monday as well as one speech, set on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and was due to raise US demands for a tough resolution on Iraq at each.
"Secretary Powell has a very hectic schedule today and in every single meeting Iraq will come up," said Rick Grenell, the spokesman for US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, who will carry on the task when Powell returns to Washington late Tuesday.
According to AFP, Powell was meeting with his counterparts from Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, Syria and Egypt as well as a host of African and Latin American foreign ministers. "We are asking for everyone's full support over the next couple of weeks," Grenell said.
On its part, Baghdad's state-run media accused Washington of turning the United Nations into a tool at the service of its "aggressive" foreign policy which risked endangering the world economy.
"The United States does not have the right to speak about the authority of the United Nations. It is the last country to pretend to want the international organisation to be efficient and respectable," the Ath-Thawra daily said Monday.
Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer warned Monday after talks with his Iraqi counterpart Naji Sabri that diplomatic efforts to persuade Iraq to comply with UN demands on weapons inspections may fail.
Downer said war with Iraq was still not inevitable, but after 40 minutes with Sabri he received no indication the Iraqis had changed their position in any substantive way.
"In the end, if diplomacy does fail, that's something that the public, as well as governments ... around the world will have to confront," Downer told ABC Radio from New York.
In Canberra, Defense Minister Robert Hill told parliament Monday that the Australian government might agree to join a US-led war on Iraq even without UN approval.
In Baghdad, the parade of foreign lawmakers to Iraq continued Monday with the arrival of a Briton who has been a frequent visitor to the Iraqi capital and vocal critic of the U.N. sanctions that have crippled this country's economy.
"We are gathering here from all around the world to make it clear to the people of Iraq that they have friends all over the world ... Iraqi has millions of friends who oppose the threats of aggression from the United States," George Galloway of Britain's Labor Party told reporters.
Later Monday in Baghdad, an international solidarity conference organized by the Iraqi government was due to start. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
