France seeks urgent Iraq rethink
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Dominique de Villepin: France is prepared to compromise
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PARIS, France (Reuters) -- French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Saturday he believed Washington was now working on the basis that war could start in Iraq in a matter of days, and urged a rapid rethink at U.N. level.
Paris also issued a statement urging an emergency meeting of U.N. Security Council ministers on the heels of an arms inspections report next Tuesday.
Speaking on television after the statement, Villepin said France could compromise on some issues regarding the speed of arms inspections, but not on any automatic trigger to war.
"France is prepared to compromise, on the basis of a very tight timetable (for inspections), but not on an ultimatum and not on automatic recourse to force," he said on France 2 television.
Asked if he now believed war was imminent as far as the United States and its closest supporters were concerned, Villepin said:"We think the talk was of a March 17 deadline, and there was a question of allowing a few extra days, but I think that for the Americans it's a question of days."
"When the moment of truth comes, when you see what is being prepared now and the consequences and the uncertainty that war could mean for the world, I believe a last moment of reflection would be welcome," he said.
The Foreign Ministry statement called for a United Nations meeting at ministerial level next week and said nothing justified recourse to war at this stage.
The statement was issued on the eve of a meeting in the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic between U.S President George W. Bush, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
An official at the ministry said the same statement was also being issued in Russia and Germany, two other countries that have joined France in resisting pressure from Washington to back military action against Iraq.
