POWELL SAYS U.S. WILL DISCUSS SAUDI PLAN FOR IRAQ

Saudis Propose Mobilizing Arab, Islamic Countries to Stabilize Iraq

 Informe de  de Robin Wright  en “The Washington Post” del 29/07/2004

Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)

JIDDAH, July 29 -- After his first meeting with Iraq's new prime minister, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Thursday that the United States will soon begin "intensive discussions" with Islamic countries to explore Saudi Arabia's proposal to mobilize new forces from Arab and Islamic countries to help stabilize Iraq.

He described the Saudi proposal as "an interesting idea, a welcome idea." The United States had earlier tried to convince Islamic countries to join the coalition, but failed.

A Muslim force from Middle East and Arab countries is now more viable, Powell said, because two basic conditions have been met: The multinational force now has U.N. approval and the United States handed over political power to an interim Iraqi government a month ago.

He cautioned, however, that several key points still need to be explored. "So those basic conditions have been met and now we will be in more intensive discussions on the basis of the Saudi initiative with Muslim countries to see if more support cannot be generated.

"The Saudis have indicated some conditions that would have to be met as they see it with respect to chain of command arrangements, with respect to what troops would be doing, whether it would be an offset to existing coalition troops in the country," Powell told a joint press conference with Ayad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister.

Powell said the various parties -- Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition, the United Nations and any Islamic nations that volunteer -- still have to sort out whether a new deployment would join the existing multinational force in Iraq, become a separate force entirely or integrate with a force designed to protect the United Nations.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, in talks Wednesday with Powell, proposed the creation of the Islamic force to help stabilize Iraq and potentially quicken the withdrawal of the U.S.-led military coalition, according to senior Arab and U.S. diplomats.

Saudi Arabia has spent about three weeks exploring the possibility with Arab and Muslim countries and the United Nations. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Faisal, discussed specifics of the idea with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan last week in Vienna, according to a senior Saudi diplomat.

Saudi officials said they launched the initiative to address mounting concerns in the Islamic world about the ongoing deployment of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq as well as Saudi Arabia's own security concerns.

"We're taking this initiative because a) we want to help the Iraqi people get back on their feet and reclaim their sovereignty as quickly as possible, b) because there is a tremendous desire in the Arab and Muslim world to help Iraq and help the Iraqi people get back on their feet and c) we're doing this because instability in Iraq has a negative impact on Saudi Arabia and stability in Iraq has a very positive impact on Saudi Arabia. We want to stabilize the situation in Iraq," said Adel Jubeir, chief foreign policy adviser to Abdullah.

The earlier U.S. effort to win support from Muslim countries had focused mainly on a U.N. protection force, which still has not been created because of lack of interest from any U.N. members.

But Allawi said he had already received some favorable responses to letters he wrote to Muslim countries shortly after assuming power to formally request their participation.

The interim Baghdad government will also now begin talks on specifics, he said. Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan and Tunisia are among the countries he wrote, acccording to Iraqi officials traveling with Allawi. "I've written letters and some have responded favorably," he told reporters in this Saudi Red Sea port city.

"We have to expand discussion on what kind of commitment they should have. This is something we will pursue in the weeks ahead. I will be talking to some of them in the next few days to try and find the common ground. . . ."

Allawi conceded that troops from Arab and Muslim countries may be as vulnerable as coalition troops to suicide bombings and attacks by Iraqi insurgents and foreign forces, but he said the Islamic world needs to take a united stand to confront terrorism.

"These are forces of evil who are acting against us. We are going to suffer casualties," Allawi told reporters. "There is no other route. I call upon the leaders of the Islamic countries and the Arab countries to close ranks because this is basically our fight.

"Those are people who claim to be part of Islam and they are not," Allawi said. "They claim to be part of the Arabs and they are not. The values of Islam and the values of Arabism" are different.

"And really the assurance is that we all close rank and fight and defeat these evil forces and this is what is going to happen," he added.

Pakistan, which has one of the largest and best-trained armies in the Islamic world, may be considering committing troops to Iraq, according to wire service reports from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Prime Minister Chaudry Shujaat Hussain and the Pakistani defense minister discussed the idea of a Muslim force during talks in Saudi Arabia last week and may convey its decision soon, the Associated Press reported, quoting anonymous sources in the offices of the prime minister and foreign ministry.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been one of the closest U.S. allies in the war on terrorism and today he condemned the murder of two Pakistani hostages in Iraq as crimes against Islam and humanity.

The two were sentenced to death by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq because Islamabad was considering a troop deployment in Iraq.

The U.S.-led intervention in Iraq has been deeply unpopular in Pakistan, as in most of the Muslim world. Arab sources in Saudi Arabia said the only real incentive for leaders to deploy troops in Iraq -- and risk political backlash at home -- would be the prospect of diminishing or eliminating the need for coalition troops.

Saudi officials stressed that their idea was still in a preliminary stage.

During an earlier stop by Powell in Cairo, Egypt rebuffed a U.S.-led effort to put new pressure on the Sudanese government to rein in the Janjaweed militia in Darfur, a region in western Sudan where tens of thousands of Africans have been killed and more than a million displaced during a wave of attacks by the marauding Arab fighters. The government of President Hosni Mubarak instead urged Powell to give the Sudanese government more time to fulfill its promise to secure the region.

"I told the secretary of state of the importance of giving the element of time to the Sudanese government to carry out what it has taken upon itself in the way of commitments. I assured the secretary of state that we sense that the Sudanese government is trying hard and we must extend the hand of assistance," Egypt's new foreign minister, Ahmed Abul Gheit, said during a news conference with Powell.

The United States had hoped to win the support of Egypt, Sudan's northern neighbor, for a draft U.N. resolution that threatened economic sanctions against the government of President Omar Hassan Bashir if Sudan did not crack down on the militiamen and ease the delivery of international aid to camps for displaced people. The proposed resolution would give Sudan 30 days to act before the Security Council considered measures to demonstrate its intent to punish the government.

In an interview with the Egyptian newspaper al-Akhbar, Powell expressed deepening frustration. "The Sudanese government knows what it has to do. It ought to be doing it now," he said. "It ought to be bringing the Janjaweed under control and not waiting to see 'how many more months do I get.' Let's do it now."