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India, EU seek key role for UN in Iraq
Jordan Times, Sunday, November 30, 2003
NEW DELHI (AFP) — India and the European Union Saturday sought a key role for the United Nations in restorating stability in Iraq as a senior European official warned that an Iraq in shambles would be disastrous. A joint statement at the end of the fourth India-EU summit said both sides "stressed the importance of the central role played by the United Nations in the restoration of peace and normalcy and reconstruction and rehabilitation" of Iraq.
India and the EU "emphasized the urgency of the adoption of a clearly laid out political process within a realistic time-frame ... to allow the Iraqi people to determine their own political future and retain effective control of their economic resources."
A number of EU members, notably France and Germany, have called on Washington to lay out a timetable for returning power to the Iraqi people.
But the United States also has the support of a section of European countries — Britain, Spain and the EU's current president Italy — who have sent troops to Iraq as part of the US-led effort to restore peace there.
EU External Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten said in an interview published Saturday in The Hindu newspaper that an unstable Iraq would act as a magnet for terrorists.
"My own view is that we have to see a transfer to a credible set of Iraqi institutions as soon as possible," he said.
Patten also warned that pushing Syria and Iran into a corner could be counterproductive.
"I actually think while there is some way to go to ensure that the agreement we now have with Iran is watertight, our approach has been extremely successful. And that it is better to engage Iran and Syria than seek to isolate them or bully them," Patten said.
The United States has put pressure on Syria since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, and the US Congress voted on Nov. 12 for a bill levying economic and political sanctions against Syria, which must be signed by President George W Bush to take effect.
Patten said tackling "terrorism" required "an adequate security response as well as an adequate political response."
"I also have no doubt that unless we'd been prepared to try to find political accommodation, unless we had addressed real issues of social grievance, we wouldn't have got a settlement. So it's a question of combining all these things," he said.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03. |
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