Senior Arab urges united front against war

MIDDLE EAST: The Arab world's senior statesman, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, has called for a united Arab stand against the looming danger of war in the Middle East.

In an interview published today in Egypt's influential semi-official daily, al-Ahram, Sheikh Zayed, president of the seven-member United Arab Emirates, said: "The Arabs should do everything they can to avert war against Iraq.

"We hope that diplomatic means will be given a fair chance", he added. "We believe that any hasty decision by any party will not be in the interests of the region. Wars cannot solve problems, but talks do. Therefore, disputes should be settled through talks in accordance with international law."

A strong opponent of the UN sanctions regime imposed on Iraq in 1990, Sheikh Zayed has so far said little about the build-up towards a new war to topple the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.

Sheikh Zayed's words reinforce a firm anti-war statement made on the weekend by the Egyptian President, Mr Hosni Mubarak, and could give impetus to a proposal put forward by the king of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad bin Issa al- Khalifa. He suggested that a delegation of Arab rulers should visit Baghdad with the aim of defusing the crisis between the US and Iraq.

As the architect and founder of the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council, Sheikh Zayed could be the most likely candidate to lead such a mission.

The sheikh expressed disappointment over the failure of the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling upon Israel to halt its military operations in the Palestinian territories and castigated the council for not ensuring that Israel complied with its latest resolution, which requires its withdrawal from Palestinian enclaves.

"This is truly a surprising stance," he told Mr Ibrahim Nafie, the editor-in-chief of al-Ahram. "Law is law. Whether local or international, laws have to apply to all without exception or the law will lose its credibility and significance."

The UAE president also dismissed accusations by fundamentalist Christian preachers such as the Rev Jerry Falwell who called the Muslim prophet Muhammad a "terrorist" in a highly controversial broadcast last weekend.

The interviewer asked if, as those antagonists held, "Islam is the soul of terrorism and the Arab world its body?" Such accusations do "great injustice to Islam", Sheikh Zayed said. "The persons who voice these charges must know that Muslims stand against any person of Muslim faith who tries to commit any act of terror against a fellow human being."

Sheikh Zayed took power in 1971 after a long career as an administrator, innovator and environmental campaigner.