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NewsFebruary 16, 2003

GENEVA -- Major countries -- with the United States notably absent -- met with officials from Iraq's neighbors and aid agencies Saturday to prepare for the relief work that will be needed if there is a war. Neutral Switzerland invited 30 countries to take part in the closed-door conference, including all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, other major donor countries and Iraq's neighbors like Jordan and Turkey...

The Associated Press

GENEVA -- Major countries -- with the United States notably absent -- met with officials from Iraq's neighbors and aid agencies Saturday to prepare for the relief work that will be needed if there is a war.

Neutral Switzerland invited 30 countries to take part in the closed-door conference, including all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, other major donor countries and Iraq's neighbors like Jordan and Turkey.

Four permanent Security Council members -- Britain, France, Russia and China -- are attending the two-day Geneva conference, which ends today. But the United States refused, on grounds that U.N. agencies already have made extensive preparations and it is unclear how the meeting would help.

Aid officials noted it was the first time Iraq's neighbors have met with relief agencies and rich donor countries to discuss what to do if war breaks out.

"It's certainly useful to have a lot of the players in the humanitarian situation together, completely outside the political environment," said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman.

Shaher Bak, Jordan's minister of state for foreign affairs, told reporters after Saturday's session that Iraq's neighbors would need more help than they received from the international community during the 1991 Gulf War.

"We hope there'll be no war," said Bak. "But we're ready to give all the facilities if the international community will give us funding to do that."

"We don't want a repeat of what we had to do in 1991 without any help from the international community," he said. Jordan, which depends on Iraq for all its crude oil and fuel, fears worsening economic conditions and an influx of refugees.

In 1991 the country hosted 1.2 million refugees from Iraq. It has announced it will not accept war refugees this time, except those in transit, although aid officials said Friday the country had agreed to set up two refugee camps on its eastern border.

Ozbek Saran, vice president of the Turkish Red Crescent, said his country also was readying for a massive influx.

"Right now our capacity would be 80,000, but of course in 1991 we had about 500,000. We have taken necessary measures to cope with 200,000, or maybe more," he said.

"When you try to feed 100-200,000 people its costs about $8 per person. Neighboring countries cannot meet all the expenses by themselves."

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Iraq was not invited to the conference because Swiss officials said they wanted to avoid turning it into a political event.

France, however, was wary and only sent an observer who would not speak during the meeting, said Stephane Schorderet, a spokesman for the country's mission to U.N. offices in Geneva. The country is fiercely opposed to an attack on Iraq.

"This meeting is basically about putting ourselves in a situation where we assume there's already a war," Schorderet told The Associated Press. "We don't think it's the moment to discuss the consequences because for the moment there is no war."

Conference chairman Walter Fust, head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, said he had "heard no voice at the meeting that was against a peaceful solution."

"But we can't afford to wait until a conflict break out before we get ready," he told reporters.

The Geneva conference follows a separate U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday on the humanitarian consequences of a possible war. A public Security Council session is planned next Tuesday.

The United Nations says a war could create anywhere from 600,000 to 1.5 million refugees. Food supplies in Iraq could run out within six weeks of the start of a conflict and drinking water supplies could be cut or polluted, aid officials say.

The United Nations has appealed for more than $100 million since December to get food and other humanitarian supplies in place in case of war. The United States and Britain already have contributed $15 million and Washington has pledged an additional $40 million.

Fust said Switzerland had donated $600,000.

The United States has been coordinating its plans for feeding and caring for civilians with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office for months, although the details have not been made public.

The American military plans to handle initial humanitarian relief efforts if a United States-led force enters Iraq and will gradually hand over responsibilities to international aid organizations, U.N. and U.S. officials said.

The United States is already storing millions of dollars worth of food and medical supplies in warehouses in Italy and Kuwait, where it plans to erect a large humanitarian coordination center near the Iraqi border, the officials said.

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