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| Axis of Evil |
| Istanbul meeting: Baghdad urged to cooperate with U.N. inspectors |
| 2003-01-23 |
| Iraq's neighbors met Thursday to discuss ways to avert a war and urged Baghdad to cooperate more with U.N. arms inspectors. Turkey has proposed the meeting adopt a joint declaration calling on Iraq to fully cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors and declare that it will not develop weapons of mass destruction in the future, a Turkish diplomat told AP. I think we already did that, didn't we? Delegations from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan â as well as Egypt met in a former Ottoman palace overlooking the Bosporus. The foreign ministers of the countries were expected to formally open the meeting in the palace later Thursday. Before the talks even started, diplomats from participating countries played down hopes of a breakthrough. The summit was downgraded to foreign minister level and expectations were lowered after Arab nations accused Turkey of failing to consult its partners properly and of using the conference as a way of appeasing its own domestic audience. âI am very sceptical about the results in Istanbul,â one Arab diplomat told The Times newspaper. âI doubt whether they will emerge with anything more than the same public declarations.â "We only have one item on the agenda and that is how to help Iraq avoid a military strike," said Mahmoud Mubarak, Egypt's assistant foreign minister. He said the delegates would be asking Iraq to comply with U.N. weapons resolutions and "we are ... asking inspectors to do their work in an honest and impartial way." "There was a solid display of unity of purpose," said Yusuf Buluc, a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman after a morning preparatory meeting. Buluc said the purpose was "to secure the best possible means to avoid war" and to resolve the crisis peacefully. One Arab diplomat, according to AP, said the participants may discuss sending an envoy to Baghdad. Turkish and Arab diplomats have stressed that the delegates will not call for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to step down and go into exile as a way of avoiding war. "Such issues are not on our agenda," Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis said. "We do not consider it appropriate for a state to develop such scenarios for another state." "Somebody might ask us to do the same thing, and we can't have that." |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 An opportunity to |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-01-23 18:28:00 |
| #1 I thought Egypt wasn't going? |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-01-23 14:47:58 |