EU States “the United States’ Attack Must be the Last Resort”

▽Solution to the ‘Minor Crisis’ = The joint statement from the leaders’ conference warned that “the European Union (EU) anticipates the disarmament of Iraq to be achieved in peace but the UN Inspection can’t be indefinitely continued without the cooperation of Iraq.” Such document is a product of the compromise opinion between the arguments of France and Germany such as the ‘peaceful disarmament’, ‘military power to be the last resort’ and the arguments of England saying that ‘the investigation can’t be continued indefinitely.’

For now, the major leaders of Europe expressed satisfaction by saying “‘the minor crisis’ of the European Union has been solved” (President Jacques Chirac of France), “There has been many similar grounds where we stand on” (Prime Minister Tony Blair of England), “The joint statement is a product of the compromise” (Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder of Germany).

▽The source of the division = After the conference, Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder of Germany stated, “England argued that we should include the statement, ‘the Iraq’s time is nearing the end’ in the document but it didn’t get included because I opposed it.” At this conference, the countries that declared their support on the Iraq War on the 30th of the last month, England, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Portugal formed alliance to speak up the ‘pro-war argument’ but it was confronted with the ‘peace argument’ from France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Australia, Greece, and etc.

The press reported that the reason why the anti-war argument was stronger at this particular conference such as the decision to not include the Iraq’s urgent time limit is greatly affected by the anti-war demonstration, which occurred throughout the world at the end of the last week.

“It surely is hard to understand the Iraq’s argument saying that they’ve not violated the UN Resolution even when they don’t cooperate”, bitterly stated Prime Minister Blair of England.

Eventually it is most likely that the resolved problem may be reopened during the process of promoting the Secondary Resolution of the UN Security Councils, which is to consent the military activities against Iraq.

▽Internal Confusion = The European press reported that France and Germany who are in the primary anti-war arguers are displaying the internal confusion as the time passes. President Chirac of France has openly declared that he “will refuse the secondary UN resolution as well” with the support of more than 80% of Frenchmen who oppose the Iraq War, but at the interview with the Times on 17th, he stated, “All the credit goes to the United States if Iraq gets disarmed”, giving off reconciliation gestures to the United States. All these are because of the pressure of the United States boycotting the French products as well as in consideration of about 60 French companies, who have advanced to Iraq, reported the French press. Germany also already has provided their Patriot Missile to Turkey through Netherlands, thus in fact it appears to be cooperative to the Turkey Defense Plan requested by the United States.

Jei-Gyoon Park phark@donga.com