PARIS, Aug 22: France on Friday dismissed a US call for more nations to send soldiers to back up its troops in Iraq, saying an international force should instead be sent with a United Nations mandate.

In separate interviews with daily Le Monde and a radio network, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin urged the occupation powers to switch from “a logic of occupation to a logic of sovereignty” in Iraq, adding that a new resolution in which Washington was asking for other countries to bolster its occupying forces would simply “see the cycle of violence worsen”.

The minister said Iraq was in a state of “decomposition” that would not be reversed until the Iraqi people recovered their sovereignty.

“We can’t make do with adjusting or enlarging the current plan,” he told the Le Monde.

“The right thing would be to bring into play a true international force under the mandate of the United Nations. Sovereignty is a matter of urgency,” Mr Villepin added in the interview with the RTL radio station.

But for all his criticism of the US path of action, de Villepin did not say that France would oppose the US resolution.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear on Thursday that a broadening of the international involvement in Iraq would not mean the United States would cede any control of the country. France and others insist they cannot send troops on such terms.

His push on Thursday for a new Security Council resolution to draw more troops, police or financial assistance met resistance from Russia, Germany and France.

The “security race”, as the French minister put it, was creating a trap in which Washington was seeking to reinforce its military might in Iraq while “Iraqi nationalists, Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists” were also increasing their activities targeting them.

Without the Iraqis feeling as if they were running their own country, the French minister said, “the risk is to see the Iraqi trap get bigger, to see the cycle of violence worsen.... It is clear today that the violence is sparing no one, nothing.... Sabotage of water, oil pipelines, the Jordanian embassy, the UN, the US forces”.—Reuters/AFP