Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
A UN mandate first
Jordan Times, Tuesday, July 29, 2003
COUNTRIES INVITED by the US to participate in peacekeeping forces in
Iraq are understandably reluctant to do so in the absence of an
international mandate. Japan and Turkey are cases in point. The Japanese
parliament approved the deployment of a few hundred of the country's
soldiers by a slim majority and after a long and arduous debate and
parliamentary filibustering. It was a rather close call whether Tokyo
would indeed respond favourably to Washington's call for deployment of its
forces in Iraq even though their presence in the Arab country is
conditioned on nonmilitary involvement of the Japanese peace keeping
force.
Turkey is in the same boat, with its parliament yet to agree to the
deployment of troops in Iraq. Its foreign minister, Abdullah Ghol, made
the point quite clear for his government when he said that Turkey would
prefer a more prominent role for the UN in Iraq before consenting to take
part in any peacekeeping operations in Iraq. What goes for Japan and
Turkey goes for the rest of the countries that are entertaining the
thought of taking part in peacekeeping operations in Iraq. No Arab country
would ever think of taking part in any such deployment before first
receiving a UN decision to create an international force to police peace
and stability in Iraq. It is clear therefore that for countries across the
world there is a clear insistence on a UN Security Council mandate before
they are to commit their forces in Iraq. Consequently, the US should be
heading for such an objective by calling on the Security Council to
approve the deployment of an international peacekeeping and peace-making
force in Iraq. The sooner this is done the sooner will be the day when
peace and security are restored to Iraq. Then and only then will the Iraqi
people hope to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination
under a UN umbrella.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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