Gorbachev calls for end to "bloodbath" in Iraq
BEIRUT (AFP) Apr 04, 2003
Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev called here Friday on the United States and Britain Friday to end the "bloodbath" in Iraq and allow the United Nations to resolve the crisis.
"Those that think they are leading themselves towards victory and will achieve their goals are wrong," Gorbachev said, following talks with Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud, in an allusion to the US-led coalition invading Iraq.
"This is only the beginning and it is time to end the bloodbath and return to peaceful solutions under the authority of the United Nations," he added.
"I agree with President Lahoud on the need to work to restore the authority of the United Nations and oppose violations of international law," said Gorbachev, on his first visit to Lebanon.
Gorbachev, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, although as president he fell in line with the United States during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait.
On March 24, he drew a parallel between the US-led invasion of Iraq and the ill-fated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and said he believed the war was the result of a domestic economic and social crisis in the United States.
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