ZAGREB, March 20 (Hina) - The military operation of the United States and the United Kingdom, and a group of their allies against Iraq is based on the independent decisions of the countries whose troops are involved, it has no
foundation in terms of a United Nations mandate, and in this respect this military action lacks legitimacy, said Croatian President Stjepan Mesic in his address to the nation on Croatian Television Thursday night.
ZAGREB, March 20 (Hina) - The military operation of the United
States and the United Kingdom, and a group of their allies against
Iraq is based on the independent decisions of the countries whose
troops are involved, it has no foundation in terms of a United
Nations mandate, and in this respect this military action lacks
legitimacy, said Croatian President Stjepan Mesic in his address to
the nation on Croatian Television Thursday night. #L#
"The Republic of Croatia has announced that it would support the
military option only if it is the consequence of a clear and
unambiguous decision of the world organisation. Tonight I can only
reiterate this strict principled position," Mesic said.
Describing Saddam Hussein's regime as "a bloody and brutal
dictatorship", the president said that Croatia had never
underestimated the danger of uncontrolled production and existence
of weapons of mass destruction.
"Indeed, I have warned that such weapons and facilities for their
manufacture should be destroyed if they cannot be efficiently
controlled," said Mesic.
He recalled that Croatia had been one of the most determined
advocates of the creation and activity of the anti-terrorist
coalition. But, according to him, Croatia "cannot support the
action focused on bringing down the regime in Iraq, or in any other
country, especially when this is taking place without the mandate
of the United Nations and against the will of the largest part of the
international community".
Mesic added that Croatia could not support the marginalisation of
the world organisation in such a key issue.
"We cannot accept the establishment of a model of behaviour in
international relations which would allow, to put it simply, those
that possess force and so decide to take military action against the
regime of any country. For, if we accept that in the case of one
country, with what moral right could we turn it down in the case of
another? And who could answer the question: who will be next?," said
Mesic.
Speaking about U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 on the
disarmament of Iraq, Mesic said that "Iraq has received the
inspectors, has not cooperated with them fully, but has increased
the degree of cooperation under pressure". He stressed that one
could not talk about a full absence of cooperation.
Mesic recalled that Washington, London and Madrid had failed to
achieve the majority of nine out of 15 members of the Security
Council for the support to a new resolution focused not only on the
disarmament of Iraq, but on deposing the regime.
He mentioned that France and Russia had threatened to veto any
resolution which would establish a kind of automatism for starting
the war. China, another permanent member of the Security Council,
also shared their standpoint that one had not yet exhausted all the
possibilities for disarming Iraq and that the inspectors should
have been permitted to go on with their work because results were
seen.
Mesic added that Germany, a rotating member of the Security
Council, had opposed the military option from the beginning, and
this position was also shared by many other countries world-wide.
"I must say that everything has been mainly predictable in the
entire Iraqi crisis, from its beginning to last night: from the
unwilling Iraqi acceptance of the inspections, incomplete
cooperation, the replacement of the disarmament request by the
American-allied request for the relief of the Baghdad regime, to,
finally, the ultimatum issued to Saddam and his refusal.
The ultimate outcome of the war which started last night is also
predictable. But something is not predictable, at least not fully.
The consequences are not predictable, both those we shall probably
see while the fighting is still on and the long-term ones which,
once the war is over, could cross the borders of the war zone and of
the region. I am talking of consequences which, let me repeat,
cannot be fully predicted but which could be felt practically by the
whole world both in the political and in the economic field," the
president said.
He warned about the marginalisation of the United Nations, the
division within the European Union, chill in the relations between
allies on either side of the Atlantic, and shaken foundations of the
international order established after the Second World War.
"The dream about the remodelling and pacification of a neuralgic
region could turn into a nightmare. Instead of participating in a
dialogue of civilisations, we could face a war of religions. This
awareness was certainly in the background of the Pope's consistent
opposition to war.
All these are reasons because of which I have cautioned that one
should not dash headlong into war, and especially that one should
not bypass the United Nations in doing so. I have never absolutely
excluded the war option, but only as a truly last resort and as a
means authorised by the United Nations," President Stjepan Mesic
said in his address.
"As far as Croatia is concerned we have been and will remain friends
of the United States. But it is precisely on behalf of those
democratic values, the values of the free world which America
promoted in the past, that we have opted for peace to the utmost
limit and not for war," he said.
"As it has done so far, the Republic of Croatia will behave with
utmost responsibility, bearing in mind its key national interests
and aware that it can realise these interests only in peace," said
Mesic.
He voiced Croatia's readiness to take part in the post-war
peacetime reconstruction of Iraq.
"We want the world to emerge more mature and wiser from the war which
started last night. Southeast Europe, our region, was the scene of
the last wars of the twentieth century. The Middle East has become
the scene of the first war in the twenty-first century. Let it also
be the last war of the present century," said Mesic.
Advocating the building of a new world, a world of peace,
development and prosperity for all, a world in which war will have
no chance, Mesic said that Croatia would give its maximum
contribution, without any reserves and at every moment, to the
building of such a world.
(hina) lml sb