|
French FM offers help to end Iraq crisis
BAGHDAD - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday and offered his countrys support to try to end the turmoil, as local leaders agreed on the agenda for a key summit. Kouchners visit is the first by a French minister since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Paris vehemently opposed, putting a heavy strain on relations with Washington.Shortly after his arrival, Kouchner visited the fortified UN compound in Baghdad to pay tribute to 22 people killed when the world bodys former headquarters was hit by a powerful bomb exactly four years ago. Among those who died was the head of the mission Sergio Vieira de Mello, a personal friend of Kouchner, and three UN officials who had worked with the French minister when he was the United Nations administrator in Kosovo. Accompanied by his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari and the UN deputy special representative in Iraq, Michael von der Schulenburg, Kouchner laid a wreath in front of a simple memorial to those killed in the blast. Kouchner offered to support efforts by Iraqis and the United Nations to halt the bloodshed. We are ready to be useful, but the solution is in Iraqi hands, not in French hands, he told reporters after holding talks with Zebari. Kouchner three-day visit, so soon after President Nicolas Sarkozy made a fence-building trip to the United States, will be seen as a sign that France is ready to seek a role in Iraq. But he made it clear that France had no regrets about its original decision to oppose US intervention in Iraq, and insisted there could be no military solution to the conflict. Later Sunday, Kouchner was to meet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who is due to leave on a three-day visit to Syria on Monday.
Posted by: Steve White 2007-08-20 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=196649 |