April 9, 2003
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, today stressed their agreement over the need for urgent international involvement in rebuilding Iraq. However, Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for common foreign and security policy, today insisted that the UN's role had to extend beyond humanitarian issues.
Mr Solana told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think the humanitarian aspect is fundamental, but I don't think that is the only manner in which the role of the UN has to be vital. It has also to be on the political scheme for the future of Iraq." At a meeting with Mr Straw in Paris, Mr de Villepin went out of his way to pay tribute to the "common values" the two countries share, following their acrimonious falling-out over a second UN resolution justifying war. He expressed his hope "that the war in Iraq will be finished as soon as possible".
"Also, we would like to stress the urgency when it comes to the humanitarian effort in the Gulf that we all work together and that the international community plays an important role," he continued. However, Mr de Villepin stressed the importance of the UN's role. "We need an assurance that a secure system will be put in afterwards," he said. "We have got to look at reconstructing Iraq and it is very important that the international community has a central role. "That needs to come from the United Nations, It needs to have a central role. It is not a question of a vital role or a central role. I think we would all agree that."
Mr Straw stressed the importance placed on UN involvement in Iraq at the Ulster summit between the US president, George Bush, and Mr Blair yesterday. "Both the prime minister and President Bush committed themselves to a 'vital' role for the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq and other matters relating to Iraq as well," he said. But Mr Straw was vague on the key question of the UN's involvement in establishing an interim authority. "The government of Iraq has to be from the people of Iraq and of the people of Iraq, of course with the support of the coalition, the UN and the international community."
He continued: "Both we and the United States wish to see as quickly as possible the creation of a representative, democratic Iraqi government carrying the consent of its people responsible, crucially, for its own security. "We have a responsibility to stay there until these other processes are there. "But do we want to see as quickly as possible representative, democratic government responsible for its own security? Of course." Earlier, Mr Solana acknowledged that in the immediate aftermath of the war coalition forces would provide security. He said: "Nobody is going to question that there is going to be a period of time, let us hope that it is short, that the country will need to have security arrangements, it only can be guaranteed by forces which are now deployed. "After that, I think is when the international community, through the UN, has to play a role.
Mr Solana said he did not believe the Americans would want to stay in Iraq for a long time. He said: "I don't think it will be in the interests of the people of the US to be seen as an occupying power." Hours after Mr Bush's comments yesterday, Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien made it emphatically clear that Britain wanted a UN security council resolution giving the UN a role that went "beyond the merely humanitarian". "President Bush used the phrase 'vital role' five times. It means that it is essential," Mr O'Brien told BBC2's Newsnight.
"It means that we can't do without the UN being involved, and we are determined to get UN resolutions through which ensure that it has what President Bush calls a 'vital role'. That does also mean a central role." He added: "What we need is a UN resolution which covers the way in which the Interim Iraqi Authority (IIA) would operated and go beyond the merely humanitarian. "We need a UN resolution in order to go further than that, create the IIA, enable it to carry out substantial reforms and get rid of some of the laws which Saddam passed. "Therefore we would need some UN authority in order to do that." Commenting on coalition plans to hold a regional conference to establish political leadership in the southern part of Iraq, the armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, told the BBC: "We are looking in southern Iraq and elsewhere to build a coalition of interests so that we can quickly pass authority for the running of Iraq over to the people of Iraq."
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