Belgium refuses to receive the Iraqi opposition conference
Iraq-Belgium, Politics, 11/19/2002

Belgium yesterday refused to host the conference of the opposition Iraqi groups in Brussels, noting that time is "inappropriate" for this meeting after the UN had launched the inspection operations for weapons in Iraq.

A Belgian diplomat said that "convening such a meeting is nor ruled out, but the time is inappropriate at a time when the UN launched an operation aiming at dismantling the Iraqi weapons, without necessarily aiming at changing the regime." He added that "convening this meeting in Brussels with an open objective which is to change the regime, in the period declared by UN resolution 1441 in order to prove Iraq's good intention, in our opinion takes an opposite direction of this process which Belgium supports." Until yesterday Belgium abstained officially from declaring its official rejection to convene this meeting on its territories despite remarks to do so.

Belgium last week blamed the Iraqi opposition for not giving the Belgium authorities enough time to issue entry visa for the participants in the conference. The Iraqi opposition groups announced postponement of the conference and the real reason behind that was the disagreement among members of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, chaired by Ahmad al-Jalabi and other groups, over the number of participants in the conference.

The Belgian diplomat said "the new situation as a result of the resolution of the UN security council no. 1441 as well as the hesitation of certain members of the Iraqi opposition who were very late in applying for entry visas to Belgium and the intensive statements by the opposition officials to the press in which they said that Belgium receives them with open arms, all of these contributed to this change" in the Belgian position.

Previous Stories:
  Baghdad accepts return of UN inspectors within comprehensive settlement   (7/24/2002)
  Iraq's FM in Belgium to discuss the return of UN weapons inspectors   (7/13/2002)
  Iraq appreciates Belgian stand on sanctions   (5/11/2002)

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