War of Words between French President and Prime Minister of Italy

French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy had a heated debate Sept. 23 on the U.S. policy toward Iraq.

According to foreign news agencies including the AFP, at the end of the 4th round of the Asia Europe Meeting, the French president started the debate suggesting to issue a joint statement criticizing the U.S.’ unilateral military action.

His point is that only the U.N. Security Council has the right to decide on the military action against Iraq. “If the U.S. first-strikes Iraq unilaterally, the anti-terrorism alliance established right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil will break up,” He warned, “and it will lead the whole Arab world to face military and political dangers.

Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi retorted as followings, representing another point of view in Europe. “U.S. allies should take the sentiment of the U.S. people, who suffered the terrorist attacks into consideration. In a new resolution, we should clearly state that if Iraq does not allow the resumption of weapons inspections, U.S. alliances would support its military campaign against Iraq.”

To Prime Minister Berlusconi’ retortion, French President Jacques Chirac warned again that the only superpower should not be allowed to call the shots in the world’s affairs.

As the debate got too fierce, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain went between the two leaders. In the end, leaders participating in the meeting decided just to state, “Any military action should be done within the framework of the U.N.” and not to include criticism for the U.S. unilateral action, reported the AFP.

Meanwhile, according to the DPA at the closing ceremony Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark suggested to create “ASEM games,” a kind of international soccer games of young people in Asia and Europe as a cultural exchange program.

The Danish Prime Minister explained that he got this idea from the success of the Korea-Japan co-host of the 2002 World Cup, and that many leaders participating at the Asia-Europe meeting already expressed their support for that.

Sung-Kyu Kim kimsk@donga.com