Ain-Al-Yaqeen - April 16, 2004

		April 16, 2004

UNDER THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE CUSTODIAN OF THE TWO HOLY MOSQUES THE CABINET EXPRESSES ITS CONCERN OVER THE SITUATION IN IRAQ.
THE CUSTODIAN OF THE TWO HOLY MOSQUES EMPHASIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF SPREADING SECURITY IN IRAQ TO ACCOMPLISH THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE, WHICH WILL NOT BE ACHIEVED UNLESS THE UNITED NATIONS ASSUMES ITS BASIC ROLE.
THE CABINET REVIEWS ISRAEL'S PERSISTENCE IN ITS POLICY OF LIQUIDATION, ASSASSINATION AND THREATS, THAT WILL FURTHER DESTABILIZE THE CURRENT SITUATION IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES AND ESCALATE VIOLENCE.
ARAB AND INTERNATIONAL WARNINGS FROM THE REPERCUSSIONS OF THE SITUATION IN IRAQ AND PALESTINE ON THE REGION AND THE WORLD.

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz chaired the Cabinet's weekly session at Al-Yamamah palace in Riyadh.

At the outset of the session, the Cabinet expressed its concern over the situations in Iraq especially the continuation of confrontations in Iraqi cities which have lead to the fall of many casualties among innocent civilians, including elderly, women and children.

In this regard, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques emphasized the importance of spreading security in Iraq to accomplish the aspirations of the Iraqi people to achieve stability, to regain sovereignty, to reconstruct their country, and to practice Iraq's role as an effective member in the world community and the Arab and Islamic arenas.

These aspirations will not be achieved unless the United Nations assumes its basic role that should be played in accordance with resolutions and relevant regulations. Once the United Nations plays this role, the world community will recognize that the wise world system is still effective and serves interest, security, and peace of all people.

In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency following the session, the Minister of Culture and Information Dr. Fuad Ibn Abdul Salam Al-Farsi pointed out that the Cabinet reviewed Israel's persistence in its policy of liquidation, assassination and threats against leaders and symbols of the Palestinian people.

This policy will further destabilize the current situations in the occupied Palestinian territories and escalate violence.

Dr. Al-Farsi noted that Israel's violations and aggressive practices against the Palestinian cities and unarmed people clearly show its intentions to strike against and abort any peace attempts.

The Cabinet called on the world community to adopt a unified stance to deter and force Israel to comply with the international law, resolutions of the international legitimacy, and agreements between the Palestinian and Israeli parties.

Dr. Al-Farsi said the Cabinet then reviewed a number of local items on its agenda and issued the following decisions:

The Council of Ministers decided to amend Article II of border security system to read as follows: "The Border guard is the authority, among domestic security forces, in charge of guarding land borders, territorial waters and sea ports according to a regulation to be issued by the Ministry of Interior".

The Cabinet also decided to cancel the current protectional tariff of 20 percent and reduce the customs fees on concrete steel to five percent.

The Minister of Transport or his deputy has been authorized to discuss with each of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon the accession of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the protocol of unifying the regulations and procedures of traffic and transit passage of public vehicles which was already signed by the three countries.

The board of directors of the Irrigation and Sewage Discharge Panel was re-formed for three years, effective from 27/2/1425H. The board will be headed by the Minister of Agriculture and includes as members: Dr. Abdul Rahman Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abdul Aziz Almi'aqel; Dr. Ali Ibn Saad Ibn Ibrahim Al Tikhais; Abdul Aziz Ibn Sulaiman Ibn Mohammed Alafaleq; Abdullah Ibn Mohammed Ibn Abdul Aziz Ababtain; and the Director General of the Irrigation and Sewage Discharge Panel.

The Cabinet approved the transfer of Dr. Ahmed Ibn Mohammed Ibn Hamad Alsinani from the Ministry Education to the Ministry of Interior and his appointment as Undersecretary of the Ministry for Regions' Affairs; the appointment of Waleed Ibn Abdul Kareem Ibn Mohammed Al Khiraiji as Ambassador at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Mansour Ibn Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdullah Al Khudairi as Undersecretary of the Youth Welfare for Youth Affairs; and Bandar Ibn Abdul Aziz Ibn Mohammed Al Waylee as Planning Expert at the Ministry of Economy and Planning.

On the other hand the Shoura Council, in its 80th session, issued a statement about the latest developments in Iraq.

The statement said that the council is terrified by the killings and destruction at a time when Iraqis were promised freedom and democracy.

The council called for the immediate stop of those acts in order to spare the blood of Iraqi people.

The council also called upon the Iraqi people to unite and not to allow perpetrators to set them apart, wishing the people of Iraq every progress and prosperity.

Meanwhile the imam at the Grand Mosque in Makkah lambasted the United States and its allies in Iraq for double-speak.

"Although they claim they are the advocates of reform and freedom, they are in fact the forces of destruction and devastation," Sheikh Saud Al-Shuraim said in an apparent reference to the US-led occupation forces in Iraq.

Delivering his Friday sermon to thousands of faithful who packed the large mosque complex, the imam asked how missiles and machine guns could bring peace and freedom to the people of Palestine and Iraq. "They promise them a comfortable life built on torn bodies...They want us to believe that destruction is reform, killing is life, disorder is order and injustice is justice," he added.

The imam slammed the United States also for using its veto against UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israel's occupation of Palestine, contrasting the international outcry over the killing of four security contractors in Fallujah with the relative silence meeting Israeli actions in the occupied territories.

"How can they consider the killing of four individuals a major crime and ignore the killing of a whole nation?" Shuraim, one of the imams at the Grand Mosque, asked.

The imam said the Islamic world was passing through a difficult phase. "The Muslim nation finds no refuge from the injustice of the tyrant and international terrorism," he said.

On the other hand Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with his American counterpart, George W. Bush, and expressed concern about the deteriorating security situation in Iraq.

Mubarak also called for the quick restoration of Iraq's sovereignty and for a wider role for the United Nations in overseeing the country's political future.

"I conveyed to the president our serious concerns about the current state of affairs, particularly in the security and humanitarian areas," Mubarak said during a press conference with Bush while visiting Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Bush said it has been a "tough week" for U.S. forces in Iraq and blamed it on "gangs that were trying to take the law in their own hands". "You just can't let, you know, a small percentage of the Iraqi people decide the fate of everybody, and that's what you're seeing," Bush told reporters, adding that the situation had improved.

More than 50 U.S. soldiers have died in fighting during the past week in an armed uprising led by a Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr. His militia maintains control over the holy city of Najaf and have fiercely fought American forces in several other cities.

More than 30 foreigners, including Americans, have been kidnapped. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was also a topic at the meeting on the day marking the 30-year anniversary of the re-establishment of relations between the United States and Egypt.

Syrian President Bashar Assad met Farouk Kaddoumi, chairman of the political department of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization).

They discussed developments in the occupied territories and issues surrounding the postponed Arab League summit, Syria's official news agency SANA said.

Kaddoumi arrived in Damascus and earlier in the day met Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.

The two discussed the escalating tensions in Iraq and "the continuing Israeli aggression against Palestinians," SANA said.

Sharaa stressed the importance of a consolidated Arab stand against developments in the region.

Kaddoumi told reporters the talks had also touched on the need to convene the Arab summit as soon as possible. He said the forthcoming summit should concentrate on reforms and the Palestinian cause.

Meanwhile Russia is ready to assist stabilization in the Middle East, President Vladimir Putin said meeting Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the Kremlin.

"The region is sufficiently complex, and we watch with great attention the situation in the region and in your country," Putin said.

He stressed that Moscow "notes with satisfaction that you succeed in preserving certain stability, and we understand full well that this does not come easily, that it is the result of your work and of your colleagues', but we are glad about your successes and ready to assist in every way stable development of Yemen, stable development in the whole region," Putin said.

On the other hand the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Issued a Statement on the Situation in Iraq. I said: The mounting crisis in Iraq is arousing an ever greater concern.

Reports coming in from that country suggest numerous casualties resulting from combat actions between coalition forces and the resistance. The humanitarian situation has become sharply exacerbated.

The civilian population in areas of the fiercest battles, in particular, in the blockaded city of Fallujah, has found itself in a particularly difficult position. Hospitals, residential buildings and religious establishments are being subjected to strikes. Innocent people are being killed, old men, women and children among them. There are hundreds of wounded. An acute shortage of medicine and food has arisen in the city.

In line with the unanimously adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1483, the occupying powers undertook to strictly observe the appropriate provisions of international humanitarian law. This presupposes, in particular, avoiding indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force.

Russia is appealing for the cessation of military actions and for the exercise of restraint. It is necessary to prevent an impending humanitarian disaster in Iraqi cities and to avoid any further escalation of the conflict in Iraq.

Also the Council of the State Duma and the Chamber Council of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation issued a Statement on the Situation in Iraq

The Council of the State Duma and the Chamber Council of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation note with increasing concern that the situation in Iraq is rapidly developing according to the worst case scenario. The country has come up to an extremely dangerous line, beyond which lie unpredictable and, perhaps, irreversible consequences for the Iraqi state and for its people, for the security of the region as a whole.

Disregard for the fundamental rules of international law and the attempts at the forcible democratization of Iraq without consideration for the historically established realities of the East have turned into a rejection of the "humanitarian intervention" by Iraqi society. They have led to a uniting of forces, previously at odds with each other, on the common idea of resisting the occupation troops. The role of liberators from the despotic regime, which the coalition forces had assumed, has rapidly become transformed in the eyes of the population of Iraq into a mission of occupiers pursuing their own aims in the occupied territories.

Russia had repeatedly warned the initiators of the military action against Iraq of the obvious probability of such a dangerous evolution of the situation. In particular, this was referred to in the statement of the President of the Russian Federation of March 20, 2003. Regrettably, both our warnings and the opinions of many other states of the world were ignored.

Today Iraq is engulfed in mass disturbances, unprecedented for the contemporary history of that country. With each passing hour the number of human casualties is growing, among the civilian population as well. Innocent people are suffering, among them old men, women and children. Military actions by the occupation forces not only do not ensure the restoration of order, but also, on the contrary, aid the escalation of violence and the drawing into it of an ever larger number of ethnic and religious groups of Iraqi society.

The situation is being aggravated by the fact that the coalition forces, contrary to their declared commitment to the objectives of the democratization of Iraq and the establishment there of legality and the ensuring of human rights, are persecuting authoritative spiritual and public figures of the country instead of enlisting them in resolving the situation.

Stabilization in Iraq cannot be achieved by putting down the popular unrest militarily. There is a need for the immediate and direct involvement of all the political and public forces of the country, including resistance forces not related to terrorist groups, in the efforts to normalize the situation and, above all, to extricate it from the current acute phase.

A subsequent effective and long-term settlement of the Iraq crisis in the interests of the people of that country and in the interests of international peace and security is possible only with the United Nations taking a real and most active part in this process.

The Council of the State Duma and the Chamber Council of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation are convinced that the executive power of Russia should intensify its actions aimed at helping to normalize the situation in and around Iraq and to ensure the transfer of power to a lawfully elected leadership of the country. The settlement should be carried out in the interests of the Iraqi people and supported by neighboring states and have international legitimacy. The people of Iraq cannot be deprived of their sovereign right to determine their own destiny.

In France the official spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said with regards to holding an international conference on Iraq : "We're continuing to confer with all our partners, that is, every time the minister meets with each of his foreign counterparts, he brings up this notion, this idea for a conference which, as you know, would bring together the Iraqi parties, the countries in the region and other representatives of the international community. It would be held possibly before June 30 to do two things. First, to strengthen the restoration of a sovereign government in Iraq per se and its place in the regional environment, and second, to try to consider together a regional security architecture for the Middle East. So we're continuing to hold consultations and to refine our ideas on these issues through conversations and meetingsIt's a question of getting it startedThe process is under way but clearly we have to work very fast now on Iraq. The June 30 deadline is coming up, time is short--that can also be seen from events on the ground. So we have to move forward, and that's what we're telling all our partners.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the situation was the most serious yet faced by U.S.-led occupation forces. "The lid of the pressure cooker has come off," he told BBC radio. "There is no doubt that the current situation is very serious and it is the most serious that we have faced."

While Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Britain sees no reason to delay the planned June 30 handover of power in Iraq or to send more troops to quell an upsurge in violence,. "I see no reason at this stage to delay that date, we are all working together on that date," Hoon told Sky News.

Hoon said he believed the June 30 handover to an interim Iraqi government was feasible but added it was crucial that U.S.-led forces in Iraq dealt with the threats to security.

On the other hand the president of the European Commission said Wednesday that widening violence in Iraq is a problem for the world and requires closer international cooperation. "Clearly the post-war situation in Iraq is very, very worrying," Romano Prodi said. "This is a war that has consequences on all of us, and this is also why we are so linked to multilateralism," he said.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the withdrawal of his country's 3000-strong military force in Iraq was "absolutely not in question" after four Italians were taken hostage by insurgents.

His government would "do everything in its power" to obtain the release of the Italians, who were working for an American security company in Iraq, a statement released by Berlusconi's office said.

Meanwhile, German aid organisation Help said it had evacuated its last four foreign workers from Iraq because of the increasingly high risk of abduction.

"Every foreigner is now being seen as a prime target, the danger has become too high," an official from the agency said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has suspended its flights between Amman and Baghdad, while the Medecins du Monde medical aid organisation has made plans for a possible evacuation from Iraq.

An estimated 40 foreigners from the United States and 11 other countries in Europe and Asia are now believed to be in the hands of insurgents, the US-led coalition announced.

Analysts say that the rebels are attacking nationals from the weaker links in the coalition, such as Japan, in a bid to throw the occupying forces out of the country.

Polish Prime Minister Lezsek Miller, whose country commands a 9000-strong multinational force in southern Iraq, on public radio ruled out sending more troops to Iraq, vowing to "decrease rather than increase the contingent".

Warsaw joined several governments in urging all its citizens - particularly journalists, aid workers and businessmen - to leave the country.

Seven reconstruction specialists from the Czech Republic, another US ally, were sent back to Prague for talks and were told not to return to Iraq until instructed to do so, while a Czech aid worker was evacuated from southern Iraq.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said his government was "extremely worried", adding that the situation in Iraq had "developed as we had feared since the start of the crisis".

US allies Estonia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania issued similar advice to their citizens.

Britain, seen as Washington's most steadfast ally in Iraq, offered stark advice on the Foreign Office website: "Even the most essential travel to Iraq should be delayed, if possible... The threat to British nationals remains high".

While most of Washington's allies insisted military personnel would stay in Iraq despite the risk, New Zealand said it would bring its 61 army engineers home from southern Iraq if the security situation kept them confined to base for too long.

"If it went on for week after week after week, you would question whether they should stay, but this is very early days," said Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Sofia also announced that around 15 of the 450 Bulgarian soldiers deployed in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala are due to leave the country, after asking permission to return home.

Meanwhile, Romanian President Ion Iliescu was expected to call for extra measures to ensure the safety of the country's 730 troops based in Iraq.

However, in a show of support for the US, Albania said it may beef up its 75-strong troop contingent.

Albania, which is aiming to join NATO in 2005, was among the first of the central and eastern European countries to back the US-led war on Iraq, stating it was ready to open up its air and naval bases for use by NATO and coalition forces.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the scale of the violence remains an obstacle to the United Nations sending back a large team to the country.

UN staffers were withdrawn from Iraq in October, several weeks after 22 people were killed in a suicide attack on the UN's Baghdad offices.

"For the foreseeable future, insecurity is going to be a major constraint for us. So I cannot say right now that I'm going to be sending a large UN team," Annan told reporters.

Also in question was the future of private security workers - often former soldiers and police officers from Britain and the United States who earn hundreds of dollars a day protecting top Western government and corporate officials.

Dozens of small security firms - many said to be unregistered and uninsured - are reportedly helping to employ between 1200 and 1500 former British soldiers and police officers in Iraq.

Sheikh Sabah þ Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah received the editors-in-chief of local newspapers þ and weekly magazines. þ The talks covered the latest political developments in both the local and þ Arab arenas, as well as the results of the meetings he held in order þ to maintain national unity and to eliminate dispute and to endorse efforts in þ the service of the country and elevating its stature.

Meanwhile the commander of US-led coalition ground troops in Iraq vowed to crush militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr as well as rebels in the Fallujah bastion west of Baghdad.

Assessing the security situation in Iraq a year after coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein, Sanchez said his forces would not be deterred in their goal to pacify the country ahead of the return of Iraqi sovereignty scheduled for June 30.

"We will retake the city of Kut imminently" from Sadr's Mehdi army militia, Sanchez told a press conference in Baghdad.

A day after routing Ukrainian coalition troops from a position just inside Kut, militiamen from the Mehdi Army claimed to have extended their influence over the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps and the Iraqi police.

"Coalition and Iraqi security forces are conducting deliberate, precise and robust combat operations to separate, isolate and destroy the enemy wherever we find him on the battlefield," Sanchez said.

He said the goal was to restore order "by eliminating anti-coaliton forces in Fallujah, destroying the Sadr militia in central and south provinces and continuing progress in rebuilding the infrastructure, the economy and the transition to Iraqi sovereignty."

"We will not be deterred...I am totally confident we will succeed," he added.

He said coalition troops were in full control of Baghdad, with no government buildings in rebel hands and US forces mounting aggressive raids to destroy the Sadr militia.

In Fallujah, Sanchez said US marines were meeting moderate resistance as they moved through the town and said they would work "as long as it takes" to flush out insurgents responsible for the brutal killing of four US civilians.

"This will be a sustained campaign," he said, rejecting charges that coalition forces could be caught in a Vietnam-style quagmire.

"I don't see any shadow of Vietnam here in Iraq," he said.

The US general also rejected charges that US forces were firing indiscriminately or preventing delivery of humanitarian raids in Fallujah.

"We're not cutting off humanitarian aid", he said but noted delivery of supplies had to be coordinated with commanders on the ground.

"If there is a violation of the Geneva convention, we will take appropriate action."

Sanchez said there were currently 145,000 coalition solders in Iraq, including 125,000 US troops.

On the other hand President Emile Lahoud expressed the belief that European Union members could play the role of an "honest mediator" to help find a just, comprehensive and permanent solution for the Middle East crisis based on UN resolutions.

Addressing a visiting Belgian parliamentary delegation led by Speaker Herman De Croo, Lahoud noted current events had established that force could not serve as a solution, but in fact helped complicate matters further and promote terrorism and extremism.

He said that European participation in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict was beneficial to the countries concerned as well as to the European states which were linked to the Arab world by ties of friendship and cooperation in the various domains.

"If the international community desires to achieve a comprehensive peace, this must be sought on all tracks simultaneously in order to ensure comprehensiveness for the solution," he added.

De Croo earlier expressed satisfaction at having the chance to get acquainted with the results of Lebanon's achievements over the past few years, affirming that his Arab tour was also necessary to sound out the position of various countries on current regional developments.

Meanwhile, De Croo stressed the importance of all sides exerting efforts to establish Middle East peace, which, he said, was essential as far as combating terrorism was concerned.

He was speaking to reporters after calling on Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, accompanied by members of the delegation and Chouf MP Mohammed Hajjar as well as the Belgian Ambassador, Francoise Gustin.

The delegation was also received by Foreign Minister Jean Obeid for a review of relations between the two countries and the regional situation.

The visitor paid tribute to Hariri, saying "We discussed relations between Lebanon and Europe, and Europe and the Middle East and it is clear that I share with him a major part of his views and consider that peace in this region is essential to combat terrorism," he said.

"All of us must exert efforts so that peace may be re-established and so that we may be able to influence our American friends and that Lebanon may, in turn, influence its Palestinian friends in order to put an end to this conflict," he added.

"This is because this conflict - and here I believe Prime Minister Hariri is right - is the cause of most plagues from which we suffer at present," De Croo said.

At the Foreign Ministry, De Croo described his talks with Obeid as positive and said they touched on the prospects of convening an Arab summit, with the Foreign Minister underlining the importance of the role Europe could play in the Middle East region.

Acting Palestinian Minister of Awqaf and Religious þAffairs and Orator of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Yousef Jumaa Salama called the þ Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Al-Quds Committee and the Arab þ League to take a quick and a serious action to save the Mosque from the þIsraeli conspiracies.þ þ

In a statement releazed last week Salama said that the desecration þ þof the Mosque's courtyards yesterday by a number of extremist Israeli þ þsettlers, disclosed their plotting to bomb the mosque with huge explosives.þ þ

Sheikh Salama indicated that those repeated conspiracies and aggression þ against the holy city come as part of the Israeli pre-emptive policy to target þall of the Islamic and Christian sacred sites, through preventing the prayers þ from reaching the Mosque, imposing a tight siege on the Christian churches and þ preventing the monks from getting into those churches.þ þ

Sheikh Salama accused in the statement the Israeli soldiers of preventing þthe Muslim worshippers from getting into the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil þ(Hebron) under the pretext of celebrating the Jewish feasts for þthree days, an act that calls for an Islamic and an Arab move to protect the þ holy sites in the occupied Palestinian territories.þ þ

The statement denounced the Israeli settlers' desecration of Al-Aqsa þ þcourtyards, who have entered the mosque under the Israeli army's protection þ and cover up.þ þ

Salama expressed his worries of the increasing Israeli aggression, þ þincluding storming into the mosque, the drillings and digging operations and þfiring gas and rubber bullets with the aim of scaring the prayers.