BAGHDAD, May 4: The new US advisor to Iraq’s industry ministry said on Sunday he hoped that France and Germany, which led opposition to the war, will be allowed to take part in the rebuilding of Iraq.

But Tim Carney, a career diplomat tapped to advise what is one of Iraq’s largest ministries, said the two longtime US allies would have to accept that the US-led coalition is calling the shots.

“If France or Germany recognises the need to engage seriously in Iraq, and in the reconstruction and the building as part of this broad coalition effort, I would hope they will be welcomed,” he said.

“But it’s obviously going to be on the terms of the coalition,” he told a press conference at which he introduced the US choice as interim head of the industry ministry, its former deputy minister, Ahmed al-Gailini.

Oil production is flowing, although well below pre-war levels, and Gailini said some foodstuff and dairy companies had resumed production. But most state firms are lacking the electricity and gas to get back on line. Gailini and Carney said the ministry’s companies were not involved in any military programmes, pointing out that another government body, the military industrialisation directorate, was overseeing alleged weapons programmes.

The two officials called for a lifting of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 to allow the industry to receive the raw material it needs. “The sanctions have a big effect,” said Gailini.

Washington and London have been pressing for an end to the UN sanctions.

But Russia and France, two other permanent members of the UN Security Council, argue that such a move would only be appropriate when UN weapons inspectors verify that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction.

Moscow and Paris also fear that an end to sanctions would effectively hand control of Iraq’s immense oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia’s, to the United States.

A senior US official that Washington would not actively seek to get the war’s opponents to take part in a multinational force to stabilise the country, which will be led by the US, Britain and Poland.—AFP