UN Security Council needs to vote on post-war Iraq role: Britain

LONDON (AFP) Apr 13, 2003
The UN Security Council urgently needs to define the role that the United Nations is to play in rebuilding Iraq and must adopt a resolution on it, a senior British minister said Sunday.

"What has to happen now is that the members of the Security Council must come together and agree on the definition of that central, that vital role, and pass that resolution," Trade and Industry Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt told the ITV television channel.

"The longer-term reconstruction does need to have an Iraqi-led administration and our view is in order to create that interim and then that long-term Iraqi administration you need that vital role for the United Nations," she added.

Her words echoed recent comments by both US President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac and suggested their positions were not incompatible.

Bush has said the UN would play a vital role in post-war Iraq, while Chirac, who led fierce European opposition to the war, has insisted it must have a central role.

SPACE.WIRE