British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Friday against reading their willingness to hone the sanctions against his regime as a sign of weakness, said AFP.
"A change in a sanction regime that is not working should not be any kind of signal whatsoever to him that he should cross any line and test our will," Bush said in a joint press conference after a meeting with Blair in Washington Friday.
Blair arrived in Washington on Friday and was the first European official to hold talks with the new US president.
Bush and Blair sought common ground on a broad range of troublesome issues where the two allies badly need each other's support, including missile defense and the containment of Iraq, said the Washington Post newspaper.
The first threatens to divide the United States and Britain, and the second could leave the two isolated against countries weary of the 10-year campaign to isolate the Iraqi government, said the Post.
The two leaders reached no agreement on the thorny issue of a missile defense system. Bush said he saw a "breakthrough" in a recent Russian proposal that acknowledged the possible usefulness of a missile defense system in Europe, calling it "a recognition that the Cold War has passed," said the Post.
Bush, who on Thursday spoke vigorously about concerns that China had been helping to build Iraqi air defenses, said Friday he had received a conciliatory response from the Chinese, which he characterized as: "If this is the case, we'll remedy the situation."
Bush added that he was inclined to "begin with trust" in relations with China, said the paper.
On Friday, US ambassador to China Joseph W. Prueher met Wang Guangya, China's vice foreign minister to deliver a formal protest that China is providing fiber-optic cables to Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions.
Though the United States first raised the concern in early January, Wang provided no further response, the paper added.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s deputy foreign minister, Nizar Hamdoon, rejected accusations that his country was developing weapons of mass destruction.
Hamdoon, after talks with French officials in Paris, rubbished US claims that Chinese experts had helped Iraq put in place a fiber-optic network to control its air defense systems.
"There are no Chinese experts in Iraq; everyone knows that. I formally deny this type of assertion," he declared.
During the meetings, the French urged Iraq to cooperate fully with the United Nations and allow international monitors to inspect its weapons programs.
Hamdoon said that weapons inspections could not resume until the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an attack which provoked the 1991 Gulf War between a US-led coalition and Iraqi forces.
"If the embargo were to be lifted, we would be ready to re-admit weapon inspections," he said.
US warplanes again struck air defense targets in northern Iraq on Thursday, the first time since major raids were launched near the capital Baghdad last week.
The latest attack - north of the city of Mosul - was the first since air strikes were launched at targets near the Iraqi capital Baghdad last Friday.
US forces' European Command said the strike was in retaliation for anti-aircraft artillery being fired at aircraft patrolling the air exclusion zone imposed by the UK-US coalition which covers much of the north of the country.
"Coalition aircraft responded to the Iraqi attacks by dropping ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system," the US command said in a statement – Albawaba.com
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