Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, odd coalitions are sometimes formed in this House, and not only in this House. Any assessment of the situation in Iraq is of course difficult for two reasons. Firstly, the internal structures of all dictatorships make them difficult to evaluate, and the second reason is certainly the attitude of the USA. There is no doubt about that. The USA once supported Saddam Hussein, the very same Saddam Hussein that they are now vigorously fighting against, and they did so vehemently, but the USA's behaviour should not obscure the fact that here we have a regime at work that we must condemn with all our strength and might, simply because it oppresses its own people, whatever their social class or group. I am thinking, for example, of the Kurds. I have just returned from a visit, as part of a delegation, to the Kurdish part of Turkey, the object of which was to campaign for the rights of the Kurdish people, yet how much more must we make it our concern that the Iraqi Kurds are not wiped out! Whereas in Turkey their language and so on are not, perhaps, sufficiently provided for, in Iraq, though, they would be exterminated, and the same is true of the Shiites and other population groups. We can of course add to that the danger to the neighbouring countries – not just Israel, but also Iraq's Arab neighbours, such as Kuwait or Syria. These are plain facts that we must not forget. All the same, there are a number of things that need to be changed. As far as the sanctions issue is concerned, Mr Gomolka, both the things you referred to are in fact the case. It is to do with the indiscriminate nature of the sanctions and, of course, their misuse by Saddam Hussein, who very deliberately uses part of the resources that he receives for himself and for his ruling elite rather than for the people, the result being that the people have to suffer even greater starvation. We must nevertheless get back to sanctions involving those components that are really necessary, so as to bring the regime to its knees, and the unnecessary sanctions, those that tend to affect the people and harm them, must be lifted. Secondly, we must support all the groups inside and outside Iraq that are working to change the regime and to bring about a decent situation. Even though the analogy is not quite exact, I sometimes compare this with Yugoslavia, where we of course put everything into getting rid of Milosevic, and where we supported organisations in the country and also outside it in order to bring about a change of government. The third point, which is of great importance to us Social Democrats, is that we do not want unilateral military operations that are not backed up by UN resolutions. We do not want war; we want the UN to care as much about all the other activities as it does about sanctions. That is our greatest concern. We want to restore the United Nations' authority and we want the United Nations to make it its concern that a change of regime should come about here. I would like to thank the rapporteur for the rapprochement we have experienced over the past few days, and I am indeed firmly convinced that, tomorrow, her report, with a few amendments, will be voted for by a large majority.

Political group: PSE