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World Media Watch
by Gloria R. Lalumia
BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.
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1//The Tehran Times, Iran--FRENCH FM IN TEHRAN (French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in Tehran from Jordan late Wednesday on the last leg of a regional tour aimed at talks focusing on the future of Iraq. "Expansion of Iran-France bilateral ties and sensitive developments of the region especially the Iraqi crisis" top the agenda of negotiations between Tehran and Paris "in the framework of consolidating mutual relations and pursuing regional and international consultations," Foreign Ministry said Monday.) Update: FRANCE ASKS IRAN TO ALLOW FULL INSPECTIONS OF NUCLEAR SITES
2//TurkishPresscom, USA--TURKEY UNEASY ABOUT STATEMENTS OF GARNER (Turkey which is uneasy about the statements of retired American General Jay Garner who is expected to be the head of the interim administration in Iraq is going to convey its uneasiness to the U.S.... The press claimed today that Garner told during his meeting with Kurdish groups in Erbil and Mosul that Kirkuk was a Kurdish city.)
3//KurdishMedia, UK--PUK OPENS SEVERAL OFFICES IN BAGHDAD (The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has opened several offices in Baghdad. The Turkish news website NTV reported that Adil Morad had been appointed as the PUK representative in Baghdad. NTV quoted Morad stating that there are 1.5 million Kurds living in Baghdad and that the offices had been set up to maintain the security of the Kurds in the area.)
4//The Daily Star, Lebanon--HIZBULLAH STRESSES IMPORTANCE TO BOTH BEIRUT AND DAMASCUS (Hizbullah is an important asset that neither Syria nor Lebanon will be willing to give up under any amount of pressure as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unresolved, according to Sheikh Hassan Ezzeddine, a member of the party's politburo...According to Nizar Hamze, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, Syria is not yet ready to allow Hizbullah's disarmament... Hamze said that if either Syria or Iran decide to withdraw support for the resistance in Lebanon, it will constitute a risk to their common alliance, which has for a long time been very beneficial for both countries. It would also mean they have engaged in a deal with the United States, which isn't prepared to talk to both countries together.)
5//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--GLOVES COME OFF ON THE US HOME FRONT (Only a week after United States military forces consolidated their control of Baghdad, a new war has broken out, this time in Washington. The opening cannonade was delivered on Tuesday by the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives (1995-98) and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Newt Gingrich, at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI)...But Murphy remarked that many of the factual assertions made by Gingrich about diplomacy leading up to the war were "nonsense". "A cynic would say that he wants to be secretary of state," he added. "Gingrich and company should look at themselves in the mirror," said Kupchan. "If you ask who is it who has set most of the world against the United States, it's not the Department; it's the Pentagon and the neo-cons.")
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1//The
Tehran Times Thursday, April 24, 2003
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/24/03&Cat=2&Num=020
FRENCH FM IN TEHRAN
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN -- French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in Tehran from Jordan late Wednesday on the last leg of a regional tour aimed at talks focusing on the future of Iraq.
"Expansion of Iran-France bilateral ties and sensitive developments of the region especially the Iraqi crisis" top the agenda of negotiations between Tehran and Paris "in the framework of consolidating mutual relations and pursuing regional and international consultations," Foreign Ministry said Monday.
The French top diplomat "is due to hold talks with high-ranking Iranian officials including President Mohammad Khatami, Chairman of the State Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi," the ministry added.
In Amman, De Villepin met King Abdullah II ahead of talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher with whom he also held a joint news conference before his departure for Iran.
Jordan seeks the creation of a representative Iraqi government in neighboring post-Saddam Iraq that would be chosen by the Iraqis rather than imposed from outside. It also wants Iraqi unity and sovereignty preserved.
(MORE)
Update:
//IranMania.com Thursday, April 24, 2003
Article
Link
FRANCE ASKS IRAN TO ALLOW FULL INSPECTIONS OF NUCLEAR SITES
TEHRAN, April 24 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called on Iran Thursday to sign an additional protocol to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that would allow unlimited inspections of any sites under suspicion.
(MORE)
2//TurkishPress.com 4/24/2003
http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=10048
TURKEY UNEASY ABOUT STATEMENTS OF GARNER
ANKARA - Turkey which is uneasy about the statements of retired American General Jay Garner who is expected to be the head of the interim administration in Iraq is going to convey its uneasiness to the U.S.
Diplomatic sources said that an official from the U.S. Embassy in Ankara would be summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday and the statements of Garner would be reminded to the U.S. official.
Turkish officials are expected to tell the U.S. official that Kirkuk was not a Kurdish city, and they will remind the final declaration of the Iraqi opposition meeting held in Ankara to which U.S. President Bush's consultant for Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad also attended.
(SNIP)
The press claimed today that Garner told during his meeting with Kurdish groups in Erbil and Mosul that Kirkuk was a Kurdish city.
3//KurdishMedia Updated: 24/04/2003 22:29:31 GMT
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=3752
PUK OPENS SEVERAL OFFICES IN BAGHDAD
London (KurdishMedia.com) The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has opened several offices in Baghdad. The Turkish news website NTV reported that Adil Morad had been appointed as the PUK representative in Baghdad.
NTV quoted Morad stating that there are 1.5 million Kurds living in Baghdad and that the offices had been set up to maintain the security of the Kurds in the area. Morad also was quoted saying that the offices would be shut down once a new Iraqi government had emerged and that activities would take place from one centre.
Morad also added that the new offices would assist the PUK in the first elections with propaganda, aiming for Kurdish votes in Baghdad.
(MORE)
4//The Daily Star Beirut, Thursday April 24, 2003. Updated 08:30
AM +3GMT
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/24_04_03/art2.asp
HIZBULLAH STRESSES IMPORTANCE TO BOTH BEIRUT AND DAMASCUS
Resistance official says us pressure 'is nothing new'
Alia Ibrahim
Daily Star staff
Hizbullah is an important asset that neither Syria nor Lebanon will be willing to give up under any amount of pressure as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unresolved, according to Sheikh Hassan Ezzeddine, a member of the party's politburo.
"Hizbullah and the resistance are elements of power and I don't believe it is in the strategic or tactical plans of anyone, in either Syria or Lebanon, to give them up as long as the conflict with Israel is ongoing," Ezzeddine told The Daily Star on Wednesday.
According to Ezzeddine, "there is nothing new" in the pressure the United States has been applying on Syria with regard to disarming the resistance movement, although this pressure has become more intense in the aftermath of the war in Iraq.
(SNIP)
According to Nizar Hamze, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, Syria is not yet ready to allow Hizbullah's disarmament.
Hamze said that on one hand, it would be difficult for Syria to give up a means of pressure and, on the other hand, jeopardize its alliance with Iran. "Syria's relations with Hizbullah are not simple and they need to be viewed simultaneously in the scope of the bilateral relations between Syria and Iran," Hamze said.
Hamze said that if either Syria or Iran decide to withdraw support for the resistance in Lebanon, it will constitute a risk to their common alliance, which has for a long time been very beneficial for both countries. It would also mean they have engaged in a deal with the United States, which isn't prepared to talk to both countries together.
(SNIP)
"The worst-case scenario for America is if it fails to reach an agreement with either of the two countries. In that case, it will go back to its 'axis of evil' rhetoric and could even consider a second military attack in the region," he warned.
Syria, which according to Hamze is in a weaker position than Iran because of its less homogenous society and its one-party rule, would prefer not to clash with the United States and will try to resort to dialogue as much as possible.
At this point, Hamze added, it still remains unclear which turn the events will take.
(MORE)
5//Asia Times Online April 24, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED24Ak01.html
GLOVES COME OFF ON THE US HOME FRONT
By Jim Lobe (Inter Press Service)
WASHINGTON - Only a week after United States military forces consolidated their control of Baghdad, a new war has broken out, this time in Washington. The opening cannonade was delivered on Tuesday by the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives (1995-98) and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Newt Gingrich, at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Gingrich, who is close to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, aimed the full fury of his rhetorical fire on a building located about two kilometers to the southwest, the State Department, which he accused of actively subverting President George W Bush's agenda in Iraq and beyond. "The last seven months have involved six months of diplomatic failure and one month of military success," Gingrich charged, adding, "Now the State Department is back at work pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory."
While he insisted that he was not faulting Secretary of State Colin Powell, whom he depicted as a prisoner of the department and its Near East bureau, he called for a thorough transformation of the diplomatic service. "Without bold dramatic change at the State Department," Gingrich warned, "the United States will soon find itself on the defensive everywhere except militarily. In the long run that is a very dangerous position for the world's leading democracy."
It was a stunning attack from someone so closely identified with Rumsfeld and the neo-conservative hawks around him. Charles Kupchan, a foreign policy expert at Georgetown University, said that Gingrich, as a member of the Policy Board, probably even had cleared his remarks with top officials. "I've never seen a wholesale attack on America's entire diplomatic establishment like this," Kupchan said. "This is fundamentally about ideology and the efforts of the neo-conservatives to institutionalize their victories over the moderate and liberal internationalists."
(SNIP)
"
I think it is designed to scare people into thinking that anyone
who challenges the right wing is going to suffer for it. He wants
to get these people who in his mind pervert presidential policy
out on the street. Calls for State Department reform are really
a veiled way of trying to make permanent changes that would leave
a certain ideological strain that could be called 'neo-imperial'
in control, not just of the Pentagon but of other parts of the
government as well," Kupchan said.
The fact that Gingrich's remarks, which were leaked to the Washington Post in advance, were delivered at the AEI, where he is a senior fellow, is also highly significant. It was there that Bush almost two months ago presented his most comprehensive proposal yet for democratizing Iraq and the Arab world, and negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
(SNIP)
Despite the State Department's failure to persuade key allies, such as Turkey, South Korea, France and Germany to support Washington, the Pentagon brought along Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, according to Gingrich, thus making it far easier to go to war. "The military delivered diplomatically and then the military delivered militarily in a stunning, four-week campaign," he declared.
But even now, he warned, those gains are jeopardized by the State Department in four critical areas. First, he called Powell's recently announced visit to Damascus next month to meet Syrian President Bashir Assad - whom Gingrich called a "terrorist-supporting, secret police-wielding dictator" - "ludicrous". "This is a time to demand changes in Damascus before a visit is even considered," Gingrich said.
Second, Gingrich attacked the State Department's "invention" of the so-called "Quartet" for Palestinian-Israeli peace talks as a "clear disaster for American diplomacy". "After the bitter lessons of the last five months," he said, it is unimaginable that the United States would voluntarily accept a system in which the UN, the European Union and Russia could routinely outvote President Bush's positions by three to one - or four to one if the State Department voted its cultural belief against the president's policies", a reference to the allegedly pro-Arab bias of the Near East Bureau.
Third, Gingrich assailed the diplomats sent to help oversee the occupation in Iraq as "representing the worst instincts" of the bureau. "They were promoted in a culture of propping up dictators, coddling the corrupt and ignoring the secret police. Their instinct is to create a weak Iraqi government that will not threaten its Syrian, Iranian, Saudi and other dictatorial neighbors," he said.
Fourthly, he said involving the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the reconstruction process in Iraq was "a further sign that nothing has been learned". "As of two weeks ago, not one mile of road had been paved in Afghanistan ...There is no reason to believe USAID will be any better in Iraq than the disaster it has been in Afghanistan," Gingrich said, adding, "the State Department should be transformed, but USAID should be abolished."
(SNIP)
But Murphy remarked that many of the factual assertions made by
Gingrich about diplomacy leading up to the war were "nonsense". "A
cynic would say that he wants to be secretary of state," he
added. "Gingrich and company should look at themselves in
the mirror," said Kupchan. "If you ask who is it who
has set most of the world against the United States, it's not the
Department; it's the Pentagon and the neo-cons."
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© 2003, Gloria R. Lalumia, insight@zianet.com
Radio for the Left at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical/radio.htm
