Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-01-Speech-4-016"
Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
---|---|
rdf:type | |
dcterms:Date | |
dcterms:Is Part Of | |
dcterms:Language | |
lpv:document identification number |
"en.20010301.1.4-016"2
|
lpv:hasSubsequent | |
lpv:speaker | |
lpv:spokenAs | |
lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we should, first of all, thank the Americans and the British for showing such a sense of responsibility. Mr Wurtz, who believes that we could and should entrust any decision regarding this matter to the Security Council, has, if I may say so, a bit of a nerve. Since we are aware that two other members of the Security Council, namely the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, are currently supplying arms to Iraq, it is, in my view, irresponsible to say the least, to think that we can take decisions in this context.
However, though we are grateful to the US, we should not let this prevent us from considering a new form of sanctions but we should certainly not lift them. I believe that these sanctions can be effective, as General Powell himself acknowledged. I would also like to say that I am astonished that, apart from Mr Wurtz, no one has mentioned American interests today. Mr Wurtz presented us with an excellent analysis of American interests, which would justify the US strategic defence programme. Everyone can draw their own conclusions from this. In other debates, however, we have certainly always attacked the Americans for their underlying economic interests in this region. Today, I suspect that there are possibly one or two Member States – perhaps one of them is your own, Mr Wurtz – who might have similar interests, the same sort of interests that you most strongly condemn where the US is concerned.
If we wish this discussion to be in any way constructive, I believe that all these issues must be laid out before us. We must also go back to the heart of the problem, as Mrs Nicholson has done, which is the regime in power – we should have no illusions about this either. We know how difficult it is to overthrow this sort of regime, how hard it is to introduce a system of sanctions. After ten years, we have some experience of the sanctions imposed in 1991. I believe that we must consider a new form of sanctions, but it will be difficult to remove the military element from them, and we will certainly even have to step up the military pressure, as we will certainly have to consider increasing the size of the no-fly zone over Kurdistan. It is precisely the lack of protection of various Kurdish regions of Kurdistan that has brought about the recent waves of Kurdish immigrants arriving in France. These no-fly zones must be extended, and so that their protection is guaranteed, we will unfortunately have to use some military means that, currently, only the British and the Americans seem to be able to provide.
We will also have to consider putting more pressure on the People’s Republic of China and on Russia to put an end to their military collaboration with Iraq, but, above all, we will also have to consider a different type of bombing which consists of bombarding Iraq day and night with information, using satellite broadcasting and bombarding the whole country with leaflets, so that the citizens are aware of the international community’s policy but, more importantly, so that they are aware of Saddam Hussein’s policy, which allows him to misappropriate most of the aid that he receives from the oil for food programme. We must, therefore, have an information policy that provides the Iraqi people with knowledge, so that this regime can finally be overthrown."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples