Unjustified, says India

By Amit Baruah, The Hindu, Friday 21 March 2003

NEW DELHI March 20. India said today that the United States’ military action against Iraq lacked justification and echoed the pronouncements of the United Nations chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baradei, that such action was avoidable.

The statement was issued after an informal among the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, and some others at the Prime Minister’s residence.

Bush phones up PM

In a related development, the U.S. President, George W. Bush, telephoned the Prime Minister and informed him of the recent developments leading to the military action against Iraq.

Mr. Vajpayee, sources said, expressed deep anguish at the fact that the U.N. Security Council was unable to reach agreement on the course of action to be adopted on Iraq. Hoping that the military action would be concluded at the earliest, he told Mr. Bush of the need to provide humanitarian assistance, adding that India was ready to participate in such efforts.

The Prime Minister is also convening an all-party meeting on Saturday on Iraq.

In a statement, on which he took no questions, the Foreign Office spokesman said this afternoon: It is with the deepest anguish that we have seen reports of the commencement of military action in Iraq.

Taking care not to name the U.S., it said that India recognised the full force and validity of the international community to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, set out in the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441.

Recent weeks have seen serious divergence of opinion among members of the U.N. Security Council on action in respect of Iraq’s compliance with Resolution 1441.

It is a matter of grave concern that continuing differences within the Security Council prevented a harmonisation of the position of its members, resulting in seriously impairing the authority of the U.N. system.

‘Not an evacuation’

The spokesman said that Air-India had operated additional flights on the basis of commercial demand to bring back some people, adding that this was not an evacuation and that air space around Iraq was open.

The feedback coming in from Indian missions in the Gulf was that there was no cause for panic and that they did not fear a major dislocation of the Indian community living there.