Baghdad, July 21: Iraq has won the support of Jordan, Syria and the PLO for the holding of an urgent meeting of the Arab Parliamentary Union (APU) on US threats against Baghdad, the official INA news agency reported today. The Jordanian and Syrian parliamentary speakers, Zaid al-Rifai and Abdel Kader Kaddura, respectively, and Palestine National Council representative Salim al-Zanun, have expressed their support in writing, INA said. Iraq's Parliament sent a message to its Arab counterparts on Thursday urging them to hold a meeting "as soon as possible" in Baghdad or in Syria, the headquarters of the APU.
It held an extraordinary session last week and assured the country's leader Saddam Hussein of their full support in the face of threats from Washington and opposition groups to overthrow the regime.
On July 8, US President George W Bush said that Washington wanted a "regime change" in Iraq, and vowed to use "all tools" at his disposal to achieve it. The United States has repeatedly accused Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction.
An array of Iraqi opposition groups and exiled military officers at a meeting in London on July 14 set up a military council to plan the overthrow of Saddam. They also called on the Iraqi army to assist them. Bureau Report