May 20, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 17, 1424

BRUSSELS, May 19: Germany on Monday blocked the adoption of a statement drafted by the European Union’s Greek presidency, which failed to underscore the United Nations’ central role in postwar Iraq, diplomats said.

The text was intended to sum up the 15-member Union’s position on Iraq following the US-led war and notably welcomed the fact that the debate on Iraq was “returning to the framework of the United Nations.”

But the draft, submitted to EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, was rejected by Germany’s Joschka Fischer, who argued any such text should go further by stressing the world body’s “central” role in postwar Iraq.

Fischer deemed that the text as it stood added nothing to previous EU statements on Iraq, according to diplomats on the meeting’s sidelines.

They added that Greece had chosen to scrap its text rather than push for a consensus, for fear of reigniting recent divisions between the Union’s members.

The United States was due late Monday to submit a revised version of its draft resolution for postwar Iraq to the UN Security Council and hoped for a vote on Wednesday.

Diplomats in New York told AFP that the United States seemed set to get majority backing in the Security Council, but would have to concede more political authority to the United Nations if it wanted unanimous approval.

CHIRAC: France is holding out for further amendments to a US draft resolution on rebuilding Iraq, including a bigger role for the United Nations, President Jacques Chirac said on Monday.

The extent of UN involvement is a sticking point in negotiations over a text that would give the United States and Britain wide-ranging powers to run Iraq and decide how to spend its oil wealth for reconstruction purposes.

A revised draft circulated last week beefed up the role of a UN envoy in Iraq. But France, Russia and China, all of whom have powers of veto on the UN Security Council, still have reservations.

“The president said he was convinced the text can be markedly improved so everyone can look upon it favourably,” Chirac’s spokeswoman told reporters after he met Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.

“As it stands, the role envisaged for the United Nations is unsatisfactory,” she added.—Reuters