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Gulf leaders call Saddam to step down
01/03/2003 13:40 - (SA)
Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt - An Arab country has made the first official call for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down to avert war, submitting a proposal at an Arab League summit on Saturday for Saddam and the rest of his leadership to leave in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
The call in a letter to the summit from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, defied long-standing resistance among Arab leaders to meddling in each others' domestic affairs. The United States and many in the region have said Saddam's resignation is the only way to avert war over Saddam's alleged attempts to hide banned biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.
Sheik Zayed's letter, circulated among journalists at the summit and formally submitted for debate by the leaders, did not refer explicitly to Saddam but said the entire "Iraqi leadership should step down and leave Iraq with all the appropriate advantages within two weeks of adopting this Arab initiative."
"Regional and international binding legal guarantees should be given to the Iraqi leadership so that it won't be subjected to any form of legal action," Sheik Zayed said. He said the Arab League and the United Nations should then govern until Iraq could return to "its normal situation according to the will of the brotherly Iraqi people."
Sheik Zayed's proposal likely reflected a minority opinion within the league, shared mainly by Gulf countries that have long taken the hardest line against Saddam. The 22-member league was expected to take a more moderate approach when Saturday's summit ends with a pan-Arab declaration on how the Iraq crisis should be addressed.
A proposed final summit resolution drafted by Arab foreign ministers rejects any attack on Iraq that is not sanctioned by the United Nations and proposes a last-ditch peacemaking effort.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Arabs leaders to call on Saddam to "step down and get out of the way and let some responsible leadership take over in Baghdad."
But Egypt, considered the state in the best position to forge a pan-Arab consensus, said the Arab League could not issue such a call.
"We are not in the business of changing the regime of one country or another," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Friday. "We can only ask all parties to abide by international resolutions in order to avoid war."
Privately, however, Arab diplomats said the idea of getting Saddam to step down has been under informal discussion.
In a commentary on Saturday in the Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah, Ali Qorni, a professor of communications at Saudi Arabia's King Saud University, said some Arabs may fear they will be labelled American stooges if they speak out against Saddam. But he said they should acknowledge that to further political, economic and social stability, "it is in our strategic interests to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein with no sorrow or apologies .... If this is also in the interest of the United States or the West, then this will not hurt us at all."
Diplomats had said the summit may send a high-level delegation to Baghdad carrying a message to Saddam with vague suggestions he quit. They also raised the possibility of sending an Arab delegation to Iraq to press it to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors trying to determine whether U.S. allegations that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction are correct and warrant war.
After two days of debate, the foreign ministers could not decide whether an Arab delegation would go just to Baghdad or also to America, the United Nations and the European Union to stress the need to resolve the crisis peacefully. That and the exact message any delegations might carry were left to be decided by the heads of state, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher told The Associated Press.
The leaders also will have to choose between two proposals addressing what role Arabs might play in any war, diplomats said on condition of anonymity. One calls on Arabs not to take part in any attack; a second bars Arabs from allowing America to use their territory as a staging ground.
A Kuwaiti envoy, Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al-Ahmed, told reporters the latter wording was "not realistic" but that Kuwait supported the call on Arabs not to participate in military action.
Tens of thousands of US troops are training in Kuwait ahead of a possible war with Iraq, which invaded Kuwait in 1990 and occupied it until a US-led coalition forced Saddam to retreat in the 1991 Gulf War. Other Gulf countries have been sending troops and arms to help defend Kuwait should Iraq strike Kuwait in reaction to a U.S. attack.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told CNN that a US military occupation of any post-Saddam Iraq would bring "chaos" to the region.
The Arab world has been deeply divided by the US-Iraq confrontation. Some countries, like Kuwait, argue war is inevitable and say the focus should be on planning for the aftermath. A second camp, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, argues war can be avoided if Iraq co-operates fully with UN weapons inspectors.
The proposal to condemn any war not authorised by the United Nations is a step short of the unequivocal anti-war declaration a third camp, led by Syria, is pressing the summit to make.
If Arab leaders were to move to get Saddam to step down peacefully, they could be in a better position to help shape the profound changes to the region expected from a war.
Some observers say Arab leaders were doing too little, too slowly to position themselves for a post-Saddam Middle East.
The English-language Bahrain Tribune in its editorial Saturday said summit delegates "have to face up to their destiny: either reach a consensus and unite your position so as to form a bloc worthy of international respect or succumb to the whims and interest of other foreign forces that will do as they want." - Sapa-AP
- SAPA
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