France ready to use veto

2003-03-17 08:36

Paris - French President Jacques Chirac reaffirmed on Sunday that France is ready to use its veto in the UN security council to block a resolution that would pave the way to war on Iraq.

In an interview with US television networks CNN and CBS, Chirac said Paris stood by its refusal to back any attack now on Baghdad, opting for a diplomatic path that "we should pursue it until we've come a dead end".

"France is not pacifist. We are not anti-American either. We are not just going to use our veto to nag and annoy the US. But we just feel that there is another option, another way, another more normal way, a less dramatic way than war," he said in a transcript of the interview released by the president's office.

"We have to go through that path. And we should pursue it until we've come a dead end, but that isn't the case."

Questioned about anti-French sentiments being expressed in the United States over France's refusal to come into line with Washington's plans on Iraq, Chirac expressed his disappointment, but stuck steadfastly to his position.

"I think that the relationship between the French and the Americans...is a relationship of friendship. But if I see my friend or somebody I dearly love, going down the wrong path then I owe it to him to warn him be careful," he said.

Challenged over France's historical relationship with Iraq, and over his personal contacts with Saddam Hussein in the late 1970s, Chirac acknowledged that he had met the Iraqi President. But he denied that such a meeting should be higlighted as a reason to criticise current French policy.

"In those days everybody had excellent relations with Saddam Hussein and with his party. It was seen as progressive. Everybody had contact with them, including some important figures of the current US administratio...as late as 1983," he said.

Asked if he had a message for US President George W Bush, Chirac reiterated: "I just want to tell him I don't share his views, that I don't approve of his initiative, and of course I hope that things run as smoothly as possible and there is a peaceful disarmament. "

Chirac's comments appeared to keep him on a collision course with British Prime Minister Tony Blair too.

Blair said late on Sunday that France had to decide overnight whether it would accept the US-British-Spanish resolution before the UN security council on Iraq.

"That's what we need to find out and need to find that out overnight," Blair said after leaving Portugal's Azores Islands following a crisis meeting Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar during which they gave the United Nations until Monday to find common ground on the standoff with Baghdad.

"It is a simple choice: people have got to decide weather they are going to allow any second resolution to have teeth, to make it clear that there is a real ultimatum in it," said Blair.

"If their positions do not change, if they are still saying that they will veto any resolution that authorises the use of force in the event of non compliance, so that we just have another discussion...it is very difficult to see how you can move this diplomatic process forward," Blair warned. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA