Iraq Tells Arab Leaders: Do More to Stop the War

25/03/2003| IslamWeb

Baghdad told Arab leaders on Tuesday they were not doing enough to halt the invasion of Iraq , urging them to stop oil exports and to block the use of their airspace and territorial waters by U.S. and British forces. Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said a condemnation of the U.S.-led war against Iraq by Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo on Monday was "meaningless" and that concrete action was needed from the Arab world to try to halt the war.

"Why don't they decide to suspend oil exports to the states who are launching aggression against us?" an angry Ramadan said at a news conference in Baghdad.

"Why don't they close the embassies of the states who are committing aggression against Iraq? Why don't they block their waters to American and British vessels and why don't they close their airspace to American and British warplanes and missiles?"

Several Gulf Arab countries have allowed the U.S. and Britain to use their territory for the attack on Iraq. The land invasion of Iraq was launched from Kuwait, and Qatar hosts the U.S. Central Command war headquarters. The U.S. Navy 's Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain.

Ramadan also criticized Jordan, saying the country had stopped importing Iraqi oil.

"I tell the Jordanian people that the one who suspended Iraqi oil exports to your country is your government," he said.

"Iraqi oil ministry officials contacted Jordanian officials on the second day of the war and asked them why Jordanian (road) tankers were not arriving any more in Iraq and they said: 'Because of the bad situation'."

Baghdad for years has been delivering crude by road to Jordan under special terms, at about half price and as an exception to a ban on trade under U.N. Gulf War sanctions.

"Fifty percent of oil exported to Jordan is free under orders from President Saddam Hussein and we are astonished at this Jordanian stance," Ramadan said.

On Monday, Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo condemned the war and called for an immediate withdrawal of foreign troops, but stopped short of demanding that Arab states deny assistance to U.S.-led forces.

Kuwait expressed reservations about the final communique but it was adopted by the Arab League's other members.

Arab states have been at pains to tell their restive populations that they have done all they could to avert a war. But many ordinary Arabs accuse their governments of political impotence and have vented their fury at the war by holding almost daily protests, which have at times turned violent.

PHOTO CAPTION

Ramadan lashed out at Arab foreign ministers, saying their call for an 'immediate and unconditional withdrawal' of US-led troops attacking Iraq did not go far enough.(AFP/Ramzi Haidar)