PARIS, Jan 28: France and Russia today called for a diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis as the chief UN arms inspector and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned that Iraqi weapons production remained a threat.CIA director George Tenet told the Congress:``We assess that Iraq continues to hide critical WMD (weapons of mass destruction) equipment and material from UN inspectors.''
``Iraq, under President Saddam (Hussein), continues to pose a serious threat to US forces, interests and allies,'' Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Richard Butler, chairman of the UN Special Commission in charge of scrapping Iraq's weapons, raised a storm with his comment in yesterday's New York Times that Iraq had enough biological material, such as anthrax or botulin toxin, ``to blow away Tel Aviv''.
As top US officials prepared to consult allies on a possible military strike against Iraq, France and Russia agreed that everything possible needed to be done to keep the situation stable, RussianForeign Minister Yevgeny Primakov told reporters in Paris.
Primakov was speaking after holding talks with French President Jacques Chirac on Iraq's stand-off with the UN over inspectors searching for its banned weapons of mass destruction.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
