British FM says new Iraqi government cannot be created overnight

PARIS (AFP) Apr 09, 2003
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Wednesday London and Washington wanted to see a democratic government installed in Iraq soon but this could not happen immediately.

"Both we and the United States obviously 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," Straw told a news conference in Paris.

"That can't happen overnight," he stressed.

Straw was speaking after meeting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, whose country is fiercely opposed to the US-British war on Iraq, now in its 21st day.

French President Jacques Chirac insisted on Tuesday that it was up to the United Nations -- not Britain or the United States -- to decide Iraq's future.

"It is up to the United Nations -- and it alone -- to take on the political, economic, humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq," Chirac said after talks with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers.

Chirac said only the world body had the "necessary legitimacy" to undertake such a task.

De Villepin told Wednesday's news conference Paris hoped the conflict would end "as quickly as possible", pointing to the humanitarian crisis in the country.

"The international community has to act to counter the humanitarian risk," he stressed, saying he hoped the United Nations would play a prominent role in post-war Iraq.

Straw said he believed the war on Iraq would be over soon, insisting the aim of the invasion was not to wrest control of the oil-rich country.

"It looks like we may be towards the end of hostilities," he said. "We all hope desperately that the conflict comes to an end."

"(This is) not a military action for conquest. It's a military action for liberation... We want the removal of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein's government."

Straw said the search was continuing in Iraq for the weapons of mass destruction Britain and Washington accuse Iraq of possessing.

"The physical search for weapons goes on," he said.

"But the fact of this (weapons) programme is a matter of history and reality... The charge sheet against Iraq has been laid out in 12 years of United Nations resolutions."

SPACE.WIRE