wfn.org | WCC update: Iraq letters

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Update Up-02-29
For Immediate Use
20 September 2002

WCC cautions Iraq, US, UK, France, Russia and China on threatened military
action

Cf WCC Press Release, PR-02-23.08e of 02 September 2002

The new director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the
Churches on International Affairs, Peter Weiderud, yesterday sent messages to
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and to the diplomatic missions of the US, UK,
France, Russia and China.

The letter to Saddam Hussein, routed via the Permanent Mission of Iraq to the
United Nations in Geneva, refers to an enclosed statement, adopted by the WCC
Central Committee in early September, on the threats of military action
against Iraq. The statement expresses "concern and alarm about the efforts of
the US government to gather international support for a new military action
against Iraq". 

In its statement, Weiderud stresses, the WCC Central Committee calls on the
Iraqi government "to respect the resolutions of the UN Security Council,
including demands that it destroy all weapons of mass destruction and related
research and production facilities, to cooperate fully with UN inspectors
deployed to oversee compliance, and to guarantee full respect of the civil
and political, economic, social and cultural human rights for all its
citizens".

Weiderud's letter to the US, UK, French, Russian and Chinese diplomatic
missions refers to the same Central Committee resolution, and draws attention
to its call to the "international community to uphold the international rule
of law, to resist pressures to join in preemptive military strikes against a
sovereign state under the pretext of the 'war on terrorism', and to
strengthen their commitment to obtain respect for UN Security Council
resolutions on Iraq by non-military means." 

In addition to the Central Committee statement, Weiderud also sent a copy of
the minute on the tragedy of 11 September 2001 and the implications of the US
government's response, to the US ambassador in Geneva, HE Kevin Edward Moley.

The text of the 2002 Central Committee statement on  Iraq is available on our
website at: 
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/ccdocuments.nsf/index/pub-5-en.html#iraq 

For further information, please contact Media Relations Office,   tel: +41
(0)22 791 64 21

**********

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in
more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which
meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in
1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary
Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
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