Mbeki warns of oil price surge

www.news24.com 02/02/2003 15:30  - (SA)   Mike Peacock

London - President Thabo Mbeki warned on Sunday that a US-led military attack on Iraq would send oil prices through the roof and scupper attempts at African economic development.

Mbeki, talking to Sky Television after a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the Iraqi government had told him it was eager to co-operate with UN inspectors scouring the country for weapons of mass destruction.

A self-appointed champion of the developing world, Mbeki has campaigned against armed intervention fearing that war with Iraq could destabilise the Middle East and scuttle development efforts in Africa, the world's poorest continent.

"If you had a real war (oil prices) would shoot up to the extent that we would really have to say goodbye to African development," he said, adding that many of Africa's still crippling debt problems sprung from a surge in oil prices in the early 1970s.

The threat of war in the Middle East, which supplies 40% of world crude exports, and a two-month oil strike in Venezuela have already pushed prices well beyond $30.

The looming threat of war with Iraq dominated talks between Blair and Mbeki on Saturday when the South African leader delivered the same message.

"It was a very frank meeting. The president told the prime minister war with Iraq could be avoided, and he was sending his deputy foreign affairs minister to Iraq to persuade the Iraqis to be more proactive," Mbeki's spokesperson said.

"He said we must do everything to avoid a war which would have devastating consequences for the African continent and push up the price of oil," he added.

Blair is the strongest supporter of US President George W Bush's uncompromising stance on Iraq. Both men said on Friday that Iraq had just a handful of weeks to come clean about any weapons of mass destruction or face military action.

"It is possible to resolve this matter...without going to war," Mbeki insisted. "We have been talking to the Iraqi government. What they have been saying to us is that they are very keen and very willing to co-operate fully with the inspectors."

Mbeki also said any attack on Iraq must have a fresh mandate from the United Nations in the form of a new resolution.

Bush and Blair have reserved the right to wage war without a second resolution if the UN Security Council blocked it. "That decision, we are quite convinced, must come from the Security Council," Mbeki said.