Japan Urges Citizens to Leave Baghdad

24/01/2003| IslamWeb

Japan urged its citizens to leave Baghdad and recommended all others put off traveling to the Iraqi capital, citing the possibility of military action against the country. Japan's Foreign Ministry had already warned Japanese they should evacuate all areas of Iraq outside the capital. "Tensions in the Persian Gulf are rising over the inspections regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It is unclear what will transpire, but the situation may deteriorate suddenly," it said in a statement Thursday.

"We recommend evacuating voluntarily, given obstacles to leaving Iraq may arise due to a sudden change in circumstances," it added.

The United States has warned it is prepared to attack Iraq if United Nations  inspectors discover Baghdad has been hiding a program to build weapons of mass destruction.

The ministry also warned Japanese to be cautious about traveling to Bahrain, and renewed the same advisory for Japanese nationals traveling to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Iraq Scientists Demand Can't Be Met

Three days ahead of a key report by U.N. arms inspectors, Iraq says it still can't meet a key U.N. demand: that Baghdad persuade its own scientists to submit to private interviews with the inspectors.

"We did our best to push the scientists," Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer to the U.N.
inspection teams, said Thursday. "But they refused to make such interviews without the presence of (Iraqi) officials."

But deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz charged that Iraq had threatened to kill its scientists if they cooperated with U.N. weapons inspectors.

PHOTO CAPTION

An Iraqi man reads a newspaper in front of big wall portrait of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003. The Iraqi government refers to the U.S. goverment as an ' adminstration of evil' and 'great Satan' and with armed conflict, more than decade of emity and a potential new war looming between them, Iraq's state-controlled media seems bent on making the confrontation personal, not just political.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)