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Straw
will visit Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Iran to drum up support for
war on Iraq
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CAIRO,
October 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw begins talks in Cairo Tuesday, October 8, at the start of a
whirlwind tour of the Middle East and the Gulf, aimed at persuading
regional leaders that the alleged threat posed by sanction-hit Iraq
calls for war.
It
will not be an easy task for Straw with some of his interlocutors
concerned about the risks inherent in an armed intervention of Iraq.
Straw
arrived in Cairo late Monday, October 7, after spending several hours in
Paris where he rehearsed the message for his regional tour.
"What
I will be discussing with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is what we
want to achieve, which I think is widely shared in the whole region: a
removal of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, by his illegal weapons of
mass destruction," Straw told reporters in Paris, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Straw
will also visit Jordan and Kuwait in a round of lightning diplomacy
Tuesday.
As
well as meeting Mubarak, the British minister will hold talks with his
Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Maher and Arab League Secretary General Amr
Moussa.
He
will travel on to Amman for talks with King Abdullah II before moving on
to Kuwait City where he will be hosted by deputy prime minister and
foreign minister Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
On
Wednesday, October 9, he will make his third visit to Iran within a
year, stay there for under 24 hours and then return to London.
The
elimination of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction "is an
issue above all for the neighbors of Saddam," Straw said in Paris.
Because
of the illegitimacy of ousting the Iraqi President that could force the
British government to face the International Court of Justice, Britain
has not taken up Washington's clarion call for regime change in Iraq and
has concentrated its diplomatic efforts on the need to disarm Saddam.
The
Egyptian Foreign Minister is likely to stress to Straw the need to avoid
the dangers to the region which a fresh strike against Iraq would
produce, an Egyptian official told AFP.
Maher
will also bring up the matter of the Israeli aggression against the
Palestinian civilian population and demand that Britain intervene to
stop the escalation of violence and re-launch negotiations in the Middle
East.
Straw
is expected to stress the need to kick start the Middle East peace
process. He said in Paris that he hoped negotiations on a future
Palestinian state could resume by the end of the year.
In
Iran, Straw will attempt to profit from a slow thaw in relations with
Tehran to engage in the kind of dialogue on Iraq which Washington is not
in a position to do, even though a British Foreign Office official
stressed that "he is not going to Tehran on behalf of the U.S., he
has his own relationship [with Iran]".
Britain
is the only country to support Washington's threat of military action
against Iraq, although London is cagey on whether it would follow
President George W. Bush into a military campaign without U.N. backing.
Meanwhile,
British daily newspaper, the Independent, reported Tuesday that
Britain's armed forces are expected to be given the go-ahead by the end
of this month to prepare for war with Iraq.
It
would then take two months to get the army's battle tanks ready for
combat and move other equipment into place, senior government sources
told the British daily.
According
to a projected war timetable drawn up by defense planners in London and
Washington, an air campaign could begin by the end of November, with a
land offensive early in the new year, the Independent said.
Although
no official decision has been made yet on deployment, and the British
government insists that a war is not inevitable, British strategists
were preparing for the scenario of a short, swift war, and units had
already been "ringfenced" or earmarked for operations, the
daily added.
Another
newspaper, the Times, reported that the British military was expecting
to receive a political decision on whether to use force against Iraq
"by the end of this month".
That,
said the conservative daily, would mean Britain's armed forces would not
be ready to start fighting before late December or January.
The
army has warned that it will take two months to prepare its Challenger 2
tanks, the centerpiece of any British contribution, for a desert
campaign, the paper added.
The
Independent said that senior British and American commanders believed
that a coup d'etat is almost certain to take place in Baghdad to depose
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the eve of, or very early into, a new
conflict.
According
to the Times, Western intelligence agencies believed senior members of
Saddam's regime were starting to look for an "exit strategy"
if America, backed by Britain, declared war on Iraq.
The
British and U.S. governments had received indications that "some of
the people around" Saddam had begun to fear for their future if the
Iraqi leader is overthrown and were looking for ways of saving their
skins, a senior government source told the paper.
According
to an opinion poll published Tuesday by the British newspaper, the
Guardian, support among British voters for military action against Iraq
has further fallen.
An
ICM survey for the left-of-centre British daily found that 32 percent
would back military action, down from 33 percent a week ago and 37
percent two weeks ago.
However,
opposition to war also fell back to 41 percent, compared with 44 percent
last week and 46 percent a fortnight ago.
The
number of "don't knows" has risen to a high of 27 percent, up
from 24 percent last week and just 18 percent two weeks ago. ICM
interviewed 1,000 people between October 4 and 6.
