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BERLIN, Sept 19: European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana was quoted on Friday as saying that a United Nations mandate and timetable for handing power to the Iraqi people were conditions for deeper EU involvement in Iraq’s reconstruction.
“We hope that soon, at the latest by the donors conference at the end of October in Madrid, there will be a United Nations mandate,” Mr Solana was quoted as saying in an advance copy of an interview with Saturday’s edition of Die Welt newspaper.
“This must clarify the political role of the United Nations. In addition, we need a timetable for the handover of government power to Iraqi hands. Those are the conditions for stronger EU engagement in reconstruction.”
Mr Solana’s interview coincided with a planned three-way meeting of the leaders of France, Germany and Britain in Berlin on Saturday aimed partly at mending fences over Iraq policy.
Asked if he believed the US would be prepared to meet the terms he suggested, Javier Solana was quoted as saying: “I am sure that we will soon get a (UN) resolution.”
Germany and France are also at odds with Britain over a European military planning headquarters that Berlin and Paris want created alongside NATO.
Mr Solana, a former NATO secretary-general, said he would bet on tensions easing. He was not worried that EU ambitions to forge a common foreign and security policy would “implode”.
“For some operations, such as in Macedonia, we will need recourse to NATO capabilities. For others, such as in Bunia in Congo, where the EU is acting alone we will need a lead nation.
“Perhaps there will be a third type of military operation. In this case we will find a way of setting up an EU headquarters for operations which NATO is not involved in,” Mr Solana said.
Mr Solana added the EU would be able to take over peacekeeping operations in Bosnia from NATO “before 2005”, acknowledging criticism of an earlier 2004 target.
“The United States has always said it wants to withdraw its troops from Bosnia. As the situation is today, yes, we should take over the operation in Bosnia,” Mr Solana said.
BREMER’S CHARGE: Iran is acting to destabilize the rebuilding effort in Iraq and is suspected of having a role in shootings and bombings there, Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Baghdad, said in a London-based newspaper on Friday.
“Iran continues to meddle in various ways in Iraq’s internal affairs,” Mr Bremer said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
Iranian intelligence agents and government officials were giving “support for various people, some of whom have taken violent action against both Iraqis and against the coalition,” Mr Bremer said.
Asked whether Iranians were suspected of possible involvement in shootings and bomb attacks, Mr Bremer replied: “There’s certainly some indication of that, yes.”
Washington’s top administrator in Iraq also had strong words for the Syrian leadership.
“We think Syria can and should be doing more, to stop particularly the infiltration of terrorists across the the Syrian-Iraqi border and we’re going to have to deal with that in some fashion,” Mr Bremer told the Telegraph.
Mr Bremer dismissed the idea that the US public was growing uneasy with the progress of their country’s mission in Iraq.
As for the Iraqis, his experience while travelling the country is that “there is enormous gratitude for what we have done”, Mr Bremer told the newspaper.—Reuters/AFP
