����TEHRAN, April 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Monday voiced its
oppositionto a possible U.S. attack on Iraq and stressed that resorting to
war and violence is never the solution to global problems, the official
IRNA news agency reported.
����Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said he hopesthe
possibility of U.S.attacks on Iraq will never materialize.
����On Saturday, U.S. President George W. Bush and the visiting British
Prime Minister Tony Blair told a joint press conference that they had
agreed to consider "all options" for dealing with Baghdad and "we must be
prepared to act where terrorism or weapons of mass destruction threaten
us."
����The United States has repeatedly voiced its readiness to launch
military attacks against Iraq and to topple the Saddam Hussein regime
while demanding Baghdad let U.N. weapons inspectors back to determine
whether it has chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, which Washington
worried Saddam could hand to terrorists like thosewho carried out the
September 11 attacks on the U.S.
����Asefi noted that the Middle East cannot put up with a third war and
any attempt to change governments by military means is against
international norms, democratic tenets and moral ethics.
����"It is only people and nations who can decide on the future of
their country and choose their own government," he stressed.
����The spokesman, meanwhile, urged Baghdad to cooperate with the
United Nations and avoid giving any pretext to those seeking hostile
policy against it.
����Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year bloody war from 1980 to
1988,costing some one million lives from both sides. Although there has
been improvement in dealing with issues such as the exchange of prisoners
of war (POWs), the rival governments' support for opposition groups remain
the main stumbling blocks to the normalization of relations between the
two neighbors. Enditem
����
