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Here are some promising (?) news items from Germany. Translated quotes from German GermanNews (radio snippets), Feb 8, 2003: -- "Rumsfeld and Fischer at the NATO-security conference" "Munich. Speaking at the Munich Nato-security conference, US Defence Minister Rumsfeld has defended his country's unrelenting position on the Iraq conflict. The US was doing everything possible to prevent an attack, said Rumsfeld. And it was inexcusable that three Nato countries are refusing to aid Turkey in the case of an Iraq war, said the US defence minister, but did not mention Germany by name. "Germany's Foreign Minister Fischer reiterated that the disarmament of Iraq need not culminate in war. Fischer told US defence minister Rumsfeld that the priorities of the US were not clear to him. The international community had, after all, still work to do in Afganistan, and the task of breaking up Al-Queda was not yet completed. Furthermore, no strategies for a post-Hussein Iraq had been defined. Fischer emphasized that German scepticism should not be understood as anti-Americanism." ### -- "French-German Iraq Peace-Initiative" "Berlin. Germany and France appear to be serious about their planned Iraq peace-initiative. On Thursday, German Chancellor Schroeder will submit this plan to the Bundestag. So far neither Berlin nor Paris has provided any details. However, the German news magazine "Der Spiegel" claims to have some information on this French-German initiative. Apparently the plan is to send UN blue helm forces to Iraq to monitor Iraq's disarmanent. The UN forces are to be given a so-called robust mandate, ie, the mandate to act in self-defence. The plan is currently being discussed with the EU, the Russian president Putin, and the Chinese president Hu Jintao, according to the magazine. "It appears both countries [France and Germany] want to have the weapons inspections in Iraq supervised by UN blue helm forces. Germany would participate in this mission. And French reconnaissance planes are to support the inspectors. In addition, the sanctions against Iraq are to be tightened." ---End of quotes--- What do make of this? "Tightening" the sanctions?? -- Elga Sutter _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk