Remember the last Iraq crisis?

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 12: Remember the last Iraq crisis? U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan engaged in high-stakes diplomacy, flying to Baghdad at the last minute and signing an agreement that averted U.S. and British air strikes.

The U.N. Security Council was willing to give Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein a last chance in February and Mr Annan went to Baghdad with the deal. But Saddam hasn’t lived up to his part of the bargain to allow unfettered weapons inspections and the Council isn’t prepared to compromise any more.

So instead of flying to Baghdad to try to solve the latest Iraqi crisis, Mr Annan is returning to New York today. And there is virtually no chance of another diplomatic mission by Mr Annan or anyone else unless Iraq is prepared to rescind its decision to cut all dealings with the weapons inspectors.

Mediation requires some halfway house, some middle road, and there isn’t one in this case,’’ said Raad Alkadiri, a West Asia expert with the Petroleum Finance Co., a Washington-based oil industry consultancy.

Iraq wants sanctions lifted and it wants a timetable from the Security Council. The Council has offered a comprehensive review of Baghdad’s compliance with U.N. resolutions which could lead to an easing of the oil embargo if weapons inspectors certify that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated. But it won’t make any promises.

Mr Alkadiri said the current crisis has its roots in the 1991 Gulf war, which failed to oust Saddam Hussein’s regime.

"As far as the United States is concerned, sanctions will not be lifted in any shape, manner or form while Saddam Hussein is in power," he said in an interview.

"For the Iraqis, compliance with what were all-encompassing, sweeping U.N. resolutions was always going to be partial as long as Saddam Hussein survived. The iraqis have now come to the point where they say, why should we comply at all when our compliance gets us nowhere?," he said.

Mr Annan yesterday expressed "surprise" that iraq Iook such a drastic step when the Council was offering "a genuine opportunity" to move toward a lifting of sanctions and he said he suspects Council members were equally surprised.

The Russians, Chinese and French, who have generally been more sympathetic to Baghdad and have pushed to have sanctions lifted, couldn’t defend Iraq’s October 31 ban on all dealings with the inspectors.

"Iraq’s violation of Security Council resolutions on this occasion is so flagrant that it’s in a sense forced a superficial unity among the Security Council that I certainly don’t think will survive military action," Mr Alkadiri said. "But it provides a suitable prelude to military action."

Behind the scenes, the French have been pushing the Iraqis to take a more conciliatory position and the Americans and British to consider a diplomatic solution and not just threaten force.

"So far, that appears to have been unsuccessful," said Mr Alkadiri, who has also worked with the West Asia programme at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Moscow has been in contact with Baghdad but isn’t playing an active role in mediating the Iraqi standoff.

"Robert Legvold, a professor of political science who specialises in Russian affairs at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, said the primary reason Moscow hasn’t gotten involved is that Governments and international institutions understand that they have run their strength" and can no longer make a difference.

"The Russians are very wary of undertaking foreign policy actions that aren’t successful," he said.

Mr Legvold noted that Russia’s previous interventions on Iraqi issues were strongly influenced by Yevgeny Primakov, who is now Prime Minister and preoccupied with Russia’s domestic problems and immense economic troubles.

The Russians might step in, he said, "if there was some prospect of this working."

" Iraq’s U.N. ambassador Nizar Hamdoon said Tuesday that

intensive contacts’’ were going on between world capitals and Baghdad and Iraq wants Annan to become more involved.

Mr Annan’s special envoy Prakash Shah remained in Baghdad Wednesday after 233 weapons inspectors and U.N. personnel were ordered to leave the country because of the threat of U.S. air strikes.

But so far, the behind-the-scenes contacts have produced no results.

As British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said yesterday, a diplomatic solution remains possible but Iraq hasn’t come through yet, and a military solution is now "a serious option." (AP)

US official: Chinese missile tech may have gone abroad

BEIJING, Nov 12: Washington suspects China may have transferred missile technology to Iran and Pakistan despite Chinese pledges to strengthen missile export controls, a US official said today.

US concerns about possible transfers were aired during a day-and-a-half of meetings between senior chinese and American arms-control negotiators, the official said.

Undersecretary of state John Holum, who led the US team, said he and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and senior military Commander Gen. Zhang Wannian also discussed North Korea’s threatening launch of a rocket over Japan in late August.

Much of Mr Holum’s discussions centered on Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s pledge to US President Bill Clinton at their June summit to consider joining a treaty controlling exports of missiles and the technology used to make them.

Holum met with his counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Deguang, for the first time since the summit. The US team answered Chinese questions about joining the 32-nation missile technology control regime and how it operates.

"We are working with them on a road map and a set of steps to take to" secure their signing, Mr Holum said.

Secret transfers of Chinese missile components and technology to Pakistan provoked Mr Clinton to punish China in 1993 by banning exports of certain advanced technology. The ban was lifted in 1994 after China agreed to abide by the regime’s major tenet, the prohibition of the sale of surface-to-surface missiles.

While China has lived up to that commitment, it is unclear whether it is passing on technology that aids in development of missile systems, said the US official.

"We have concerns about possible technology transfers from Chinese entities to Iran and Pakistan," said the US official.

"We continue to discuss those with China and believe they are taking steps to address those problems."

The official refused to provide details on what types of technology may have been transferred and when. He said there was insufficient evidence to confirm Chinese violations and then bring sanctions.

He would not comment on whether China may have assisted the missile programme of North Korea, once a close ally, but he noted that the Chinese Government has been a constructive partner in peace talks with the United States, South Korea and North Korea.

Washington also determined that Pakistan received North Korean, not Chinese, help in developing the Ghauri missile launched in April, he said.

Getting China to sign the missile treaty would help control the flow of missile-related technology because the accord’s annex spells out prohibited transfers, the official said. (AP)

Yeltsin orders premier to destroy chemical weapons

MOSCOW, Nov 12: President Boris Yeltsin ordered his Prime Minister to step up efforts to attract private funding to help Russia destroy its massive stockpile of chemical weapons.

Mr Yeltsin’s decree came amid mounting concerns about the costs of destroying Russia’s 44,000 tons of deteriorating chemical weapons the largest stockpile in the world which it promised to get rid of when it ratified the International Chemical Weapons Convention last year.

On Tuesday, a prominent analyst warned that Russia’s cash-starved Government may resort to burning the chemical weapons if it cannot come up with the money for more environmentally safe and internationally condoned methods of dismantling and disposal.

The cost of destroying the weapons is estimated at dlrs 5.7 billion. The United States has given russia dlrs 200 million to help.

Yeltsin ordered yesterday Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov to

step up work to attract Russian and foreign investments in the construction of plants where chemical weapons are disposed of.

Russia says it stopped producing chemical weapons in 1987. (AP)