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Uk no attack plan iran syria { April 2 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,928010,00.htmlhttp://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,928010,00.html
11.15am update
Straw: UK will not attack Syria or Iran
Staff and agencies
Wednesday April 2, 2003
Britain would have "nothing whatever" to do with military action against Syria or Iran, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, signalled today.
Mr Straw's comments will be seen as an attempt to ensure that speculation about an Anglo-American attack on the two countries is quashed ahead of his meeting with EU foreign ministers tomorrow.
The US president, George Bush, has previously identified Iran as part of the so-called "axis of evil", while America's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, recently accused Syria of supplying military equipment to Iraq and threatened to hold it to account for its actions.
In contrast, the government has made efforts to improve relations with Syria and Iran. Mr Straw has visited Iran on a number of occasions and the prime minister has visited Syria.
Interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Straw described Iran as "a completely different country and situation from Iraq".
"Iran is an emerging democracy and there would be no case whatsoever for taking any kind of action."
"We have had good cooperation from the Iranian government," he added. "The Iranians have more reason to know of the terror imposed by Saddam Hussein, not just on his own people but on other peoples in the region, than almost any other country including Kuwait."
Regarding Syria, Mr Straw said "we have worked hard to try to improve relations".
But he went on: "That said, it is important that Syria ensures that its territory is not used as a conduit for military supplies to the government of Iraq, and I hope that they are not doing so."
Asked whether he was worried that an impression was being created that Syria and Iran were next in line behind Iraq, Mr Straw replied: "it would worry me if it were true. It is not true, and we would have nothing whatever to do with an approach like that."
Mr Straw is in Berlin today, and Brussels tomorrow, on a diplomatic mission to sell the government's plans for a UN-sponsored conference to decide upon Iraq's postwar future and to repair relations damaged by Britain and America's march to war.
The government hopes the conference would open during the period of post-conflict American military rule and would follow the model set by the Afghanistan conference in Bonn which preceded the formation of a post-Taliban government.
Yesterday, Mr Straw described the conference's goal as "to place responsibility for decisions about Iraq's political and economic future firmly in the hands of the Iraqi people". It is hoped that all the Iraqi anti-Ba'athist political groups would attend.
Washington hawks are known to be unimpressed by the idea, especially the prospect of giving dovish security council members like France and Germany a say in Iraq's future.
European leaders are also believed to sceptical about contributing to the cost of rebuilding a country that America and Britain have destroyed.
Today Mr Straw is having dinner with Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who chaired the Afghanistan conference but has been bitterly critical of the present war.
Tomorrow, the foreign secretary is in Brussels for a meeting of Nato's North Atlantic council, followed by a working lunch for foreign ministers of Nato and EU states and meeting with the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, and Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov.
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