Arms 'scandal' brings call for UN veto

SIR ANTHONY PARSONS, a former British ambassador to the United Nations, yesterday called for a Security Council veto on arm sales to the Middle East as Labour pledged to press for an investigation into the roles played by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in wide-scale flouting of an Iran arms embargo.

The developments come after an Independent investigation revealing how a secret European network of arms companies, including leading British manufacturers, circumvented the embargo on sales to Iran and Iraq.

Jack Cunningham, Labour's foreign affairs spokesman, said the revelations were a scandal that he would raise with Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary,

tomorrow.

Sir Anthony warned that unless the five permanent Security Council members agreed to consult on all sales to the region, the arms race would spiral on.

He added: 'All the guidelines in the world and all the paper agreements about restricting sales are not going to mean very much unless there are prior consultations among the main exporting countries before a major order is agreed.

'If Syria, for example, orders 2,000 tanks from the Russians, there should be a system where that request goes into a committee to decide if the deal should go ahead. That is the only way.'

The Independent's investigation found MoD officials knew of the embargo-breaking operation involving leading British companies and that the DTI issued export licences based on fictitious end-user certificates.

Dr Cunningham said: 'It is an astonishing story of deception of the public, if not of ministers, too. If it is the case that the MoD was regularly briefed, then civil servants are either guilty of withholding very important strategic information from ministers and, therefore, turning a blind eye to the undermining of British sanctions against Iran, or there was some kind of ministerial acquiescence by turning the other way.

'It makes a mockery of the whole business of sanctions and it does raise the question about what is going on now in respect of sanctions against Serbia,' he said.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor, the Conservative chairman of the defence select committee, said yesterday: 'If allegations are being made about what amounts to criminal activity then clearly they should be investigated.' He added that the affair appeared to call for a criminal investigation rather a committee one.

A report by the Saferworld think-tank accused Britain and the United States of fuelling a Middle East arms race. It said that about pounds 18bn to pounds 23bn in weapons had been sent to the Gulf since Iraq invaded Kuwait last year. Britain accounts for some pounds 2bn in Middle East weapons orders.

Sir Anthony's proposal is based on the Tripartite Declaration, by Britain, France and the US in 1950, to veto any arms transfers to the Middle East that they considered harmful to the region's stability.

'Under the Tripartite Declaration, any order was put to the three signatories and, only if all agreed, did the order go ahead,' he said. The arrangement collapsed in 1955 when Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian leader, signed an arms agreement with the Soviet Union.

'There should be obligatory consultation between the permanent five,' Sir Anthony said.

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