PEN CENTRE WARNS ABOUT WAR IN IRAQ

ZAGREB/MUNICH, Feb 17 (Hina) - European writers, including Croatian PEN members, have called on Washington to do all it can to prevent a war in Iraq and supported the U.N. secretary-general in attempts to solve the crisis peacefully, the Croatian PEN centre said in a statement on Monday. #L# The statement, signed by PEN Croatia president Sibila Petlevski, recalls that PEN International had warned a war in Iraq could grow into a global conflict and advocated a peaceful option at a congress in Ohrid in autumn 2002. A preventive war is contrary to the U.N. charter, also signed by the United States, and to the international law currently in force, it is recalled in the "Declaration of European PEN Centres". Signatories to the declaration warn about possible consequences of a war against Iraq - thousands of civilian victims, millions of homeless people and the instigation of hatred in the Islamic world which they say could spark new terrorist violence. The association's committee "Writers for Peace" on February 13 sent U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan a letter warning about the tragic consequences the cessation of dialogue between the two cultures could have. An attack on Iraq could damage the dialogue between cultures without which there can be no peaceful coexistence of mankind, the committee said. (hina) rml