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Germany calls for quick end to air-strikes

Germany has voiced regret about US-led air strikes on Iraq and urged a return to diplomatic efforts to make Saddam Hussein cooperate with UN weapons inspectors.

Joschka Fischer called for a quick end to the attacks, which he said had "placed extreme stress'' on the international community and the United Nations, which was sidelined in the crisis.

"The German government deeply regrets that military measures became necessary,'' Fischer told an emergency meeting of parliament's foreign affairs committee.

"This is coupled with the hope that Iraq will be reasonable and that efforts for a political solution will quickly resume.''

He repeated Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's stand that Iraqi President Hussein alone was to blame for the air strikes because of his refusal to come clean with the weapons inspectors.

Fischer is a leader of the Greens, a party with a pacifist tradition that is in the center-left government elected in September.

In London, three demonstrators grappled with armed police on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street and five others have been arrested after an earlier protest at nearby Whitehall.

The three men, who were led to Downing Street by British member of Parliament George Galloway, were wrestled to the ground as the Labour MP and another man, Arab lawyer Sabah al-Mukhtar, were led away by a senior police officer last night.

The men were found to have handcuffs on them and had been trying to handcuff themselves to the railings of No 10.

The British prime minister's office is heavily guarded by armed police but they were not needed as it was apparent that the three men had been detained as soon as the incident started.

Five demonstrators were arrested earlier on Friday during an anti-war protest in Whitehall, that left five police officers injured.

The police said the officers were injured as security forces tried to stop demonstrators burning a US flag in protest over the ongoing Anglo-American attacks against Iraq.

About 200 protestors took part in the demonstration outside the ministry of defence and opposite Downing Street. The injured officers received treatment at their police station. One of them was hit in the face by a bottle after the protesters began hurling objects at them.

Meanwhile, France has said that chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler's report, which triggered US and British airstrikes, was vague and "raised many questions.''

"Butler's report contains a number of vague statements,'' foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret said at a news briefing. "The report raises questions -- a good number of questions.''

She did not specify which points France considered vague.

Gazeau-Secret also said France regretted not having had the opportunity to review Butler's report before the United States and Britain began airstrikes against Iraq early yesterday.

In Geneva, the UN refugee agency has said it is ready to help people fleeing the US and British bombing in Iraq, but that so far no one had been crossing into neighbouring countries.

"We have no reports of refugee movements out of Iraq,'' Kris Janowski, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said yesterday.

Janowski told reporters that UNHCR has offices in each adjacent country as well as staff in Baghdad and in northern Iraqi areas controlled by the Kurds.

They all are watching to see if help is needed and have stocks of food ready, he said, but added that it is by no means certain that anyone will try to flee Iraq.

UNI

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