- DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Iraqi
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri on Sunday warned neighboring Turkey against
supporting a U.S.-led war against Baghdad, vowing "multiple harm"
for Iraq's enemies.
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- "We hope that our Turk neighbors would realize their
true interest...Who seeks to harm Iraq, multiple harm would be inflicted
on him," Sabri told reporters on arriving in Damascus, en route to
an Arab ministerial meeting in Cairo.
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- Turkey's parliament agreed to allow U.S. aircraft to
fly through Turkish airspace to attack Iraq, but it denied Washington's
request to station 62,000 U.S. troops in Turkey.
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- Commenting on whether Iraq had captured any U.S. troops,
Sabri said, "Today when I left Baghdad, Iraqi fighters downed an American
aircraft...You know that on board there is one pilot or more. Details about
that will be announced later."
-
- In an interview with Syrian television on Saturday, Sabri
had said: "Today, on my way here from Baghdad, we heard the sound
of explosions. We looked to the sky and we saw an American plane falling
from the sky after being hit by an Iraqi rocket. It fell in front of us
in the area of Abu Churayv."
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- The town is about 12 miles west of Baghdad.
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- The United States has not reported losing any warplanes
in the Iraq campaign to topple the government of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein.
-
- Sabri said his country would not need financial aid from
fellow Arabs after the stoppage of the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program
but it wanted Arab governments to take a stand alongside Iraq.
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- SEEKS "TRUE ARAB STAND"
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- "(Iraq) wants a true stand. The Arab people took
that stand but we hope the regimes (will) take this stance," he said.
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- Sabri also vowed his country would continue fighting.
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- "Thank God we have enough faith and enough will
to fight and live and enough men, arms and supplies to fight for 13 more
years," he said.
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- "We're going to drag the drunken junkie nose of
Bush through Iraq's desert, him and his follower dog Blair...There are
26 million Saddams in Iraq," he said, referring to President Bush
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
-
- Sabri earlier told Syrian television: "The Iraqi
people will fight...from border to border. All of the Iraqi population
is armed. There are seven million civilians with weapons apart from the
armed forces."
-
- "The Zionist invaders thought that the Iraqi people,
government and troops would surrender, but they are mistaken," he
said.
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- "We will defeat the invaders and teach them a lesson
they will never forget....God willing, we will turn the deserts of Iraq
into graveyards for the invaders."
-
- He also said in the television interview, the U.S. and
British reports of victories in southern Iraq amounted to psychological
warfare. Iraqi forces aided by civilians were resisting, he said.
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- "They have taken civilians prisoners claiming that
they are soldiers, which they are not."
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- A source said Sabri would be in Syria for one day before
heading to Cairo.
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