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Polity
Published: 12 Mar 2003
Britain seeks to win African support for new Iraq resolution
British Secretary of State for Africa Valerie Amos met the president of Cameroon and the foreign minister of Angola on Tuesday, as part of a whirlwind bid to win backing from Africa's three United Nations Security Council members for a resolution that could lead to war on Iraq.

The resolution needs the support of nine of the 15 Security Council members to pass, making the intentions of Angola, Cameroon and Guinea of paramount importance for the western powers on different sides of the divide.

Following two hours of talks with Cameroon President Paul Biya, Amos said Iraq deserved no more time to disarm than it would get under a draft resolution submitted to the UN by Britain, Spain and the United States.

"We give Iraq up to March 17 to fully disarm unconditionally," Amos said. "Iraq has violated UN resolutions for the past 12 years and cannot keep trampling on the great intentions of the Security Council."

Amos began her African tour in Yaounde came a day after French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin went to Cameroon, Angola and Guinea to urge them either to vote against the resolution or to abstain.

A diplomatic source in Paris, asking not to be named, said Cameroon and Guinea would abstain in the Security Council but Angola was still undecided.

But Washington said it believed it had secured backing from the three African countries, thrown into the limelight because of the crucial vote of undecided members of the Council.

"Our thinking is that de Villepin went 0 for 3 in Africa," a senior US official told AFP in Washington, on condition of anonymity. "We think we have them on board." Amos refused to comment on how Luanda would vote on the new resolution at the Security Council, after talks with Angolan Foreign Minister Joao Bernardo de Miranda late on Tuesday.

She told reporters Britain would continue to work to find a sufficient majority of Council members o pass the resolution.

"We are engaged in discussions with Security Council members and we will continue to do that... We want to secure, if we can, a majority," she said.

Amos also declined to be drawn on the consequences of permanent Security Council members France and Russia carrying out their threats to veto any resolution that authorises war.

"Let's wait and see what happens when we get to the vote," she said.

A Cameroonian official who attended Amos' meeting with Biya in Yaounde told AFP the talks had gone on for two hours because the president had tried to convince her it was necessary for UN weapons inspectors to be allowed to continue their work in Iraq.

Amos had urged Cameroon to support the resolution, said the international community should no longer trust Baghdad and ruled out as "a waste of time" any more debate on the weapons issue among the Security Council leaders, the official said Amos.

The British minister was due to hold talks on Wednesday with political leaders in Guinea, the final stage on her tour - Sapa-AFP.