King Hussein of Jordan, who is widely seen as having played a positive role in the defusing of the Iraq crisis, began a five-day visit to the United Arab Emirates and Oman yesterday with the aim of promoting a direct dialogue between Baghdad and Washington.
This was the first step in the king's campaign to have his initiative adopted by the 22-member Arab League to exert political pressure on Washington to alter its confrontational stand towards Iraq.
At the height of the Iraq crisis, the king telephoned the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, and proposed such a dialogue as the preferred means for resolving Washington's dispute with Baghdad. The king is expected to pursue his initiative with Mr Clinton personally during a visit to Washington later this month.
'I believe there is a need for dialogue to give each party a chance to put forward its views and define its position,' the king said on the eve of his first Gulf visit this year. Dialogue, rather than confrontation and threat, should be the means for the 'resolution of disputes'. In response to demands in the US Congress that the Clinton administration should actively seek the ousting or assassination of the Iraqi President, Mr Saddam Hussein, the king said: 'I refuse and will fight. . . against the idea that any entity in the world can change or replace the government of any other country. Only the people of the country can make changes in its leadership'.
In a reference to the Arab perception that the US has adopted double standards in its policies towards the Arabs, as exemplified by Iraq, on the one hand, and towards Israel on the other, King Hussein said: 'We in the Arab world feel that the two issues - the disarmament of Iraq and Israel's continued occupation of Arab land - are being dealt with (according to) two different criteria and this is unacceptable and unjustified.' He said he had taken up this issue with Mr Clinton and other world leaders on several occasions.
Reuters adds from Baghdad: The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, said yesterday his country would live up to the agreement signed with the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, on arms inspections of so-called 'presidential sites'.
Most Iraqis interviewed yesterday dismissed as 'unjust' a UN Security Council resolution warning Iraq of 'severest consequences' if it did not give arms inspectors complete and unconditional access to eight disputed presidential sites.
'We have signed an agreement with the UN Secretary General. We are committed to the items of the agreement and nothing else from our side,' said Mr Aziz, commenting on the new resolution.
