The state-owned press in Syria yesterday quoted Mero as saying: "Any sound view of what is happening requires the United Nations to resume dialogue with Iraq and apply UN resolutions."

Syria, Iraq and all Arabs reject an attack as part of "policies that seek more US hegemony and to inflict harm not just on the people of Iraq but the Arab nation as a whole," Mero was quoted as saying.

The remarks came during a meeting with an Iraqi delegation led by Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan and were the latest in a chorus of Arab voices rejecting any strike on Iraq by Washington.

Ramadan's visit to Syria is aimed at building a line of Arab diplomatic defenses for Iraq, whose leader told Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jasem bin Jaber al-Thani on Tuesday that a US assault on Iraq would be an attack on "all the Arab nations."

In Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said yesterday that his country, a key NATO ally, continued to inform the Bush administration it was opposed to a US-led military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein.

Turkey shares a border with Iraq and has allowed US warplanes to use its airbases to patrol a "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq, which has been in place since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

But Ankara has repeatedly said it does not support apparent US leanings to launch a new offensive to depose Saddam for his alleged development of weapons of mass destruction.

Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ugur Ziyal is now in Washington for talks on Iraq as well as Turkey's command of the international peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital Kabul.

Ecevit told a news conference: "We have used every opportunity to tell our friends in the US administration we are opposed to military action against Iraq."

Ankara fears that turmoil next door could spill over into its own troubled southeast, where a Kurdish separatist struggle has claimed more than 30,000 lives since 1984.

Turkish officials also say a war would imperil economic recovery as Turkey struggles to emerge from a deep recession.

Meanwhile, Iraq remained defiant in the face of US threats, with Foreign Minister Naji Sabri warning Washington in remarks published yesterday of a dismal defeat if it tried to occupy his country.

In an interview with the English-language Saudi Gazette, Sabri also called on all Arab and Muslim nations to set aside their differences and unite against the "evil, malicious intentions" of the United States, which he said coveted their land.

Sabri's comments were published two days after US Vice-President Dick Cheney called for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.

"Nobody in our country wants confrontation with the United States or with others," Sabri told the Saudi Gazette.

"But, if aggression is imposed on our territory, the sons of our Iraqi soil - all 26 million of them - will fight against those who commit aggression and the American Zionists will find nothing but defeat."

However, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said yesterday in Tokyo that Washington was confident it could convince skeptical allies to back military action against Iraq.

Armitage said he believed the United States had a compelling case to topple Saddam Hussein and could win enough international support, despite signs of growing opposition from friends and rivals alike. "We believe that we will ultimately be able to make a compelling case and, in the course of time, will be moving forward," Armitage told a news conference in Tokyo.

"It is our view that an Iraq left unattended is a threat to its neighbors and a threat to ourselves."

(China Daily August 29, 2002)