CAIRO, May 12: US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned here on Monday that the emergence of an Islamist government in Iraq would “not be in the best interest of the Iraqi people or its neighbors.”

“We believe that an Iraqi government should be created that is representative of the Iraqi people and of all the differents elements of the Iraqi people,” Mr Powell said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“I think it would be unfortunate if a government rose there that is so fundamentalist that it didn’t respect the basic things for democracy,” the secretary of state told reporters here.

“What we are trying to do is to make sure that we develop leaders to come up and represent all elements of the population,” Powell said.

“What we have to do is respect the Islamic faith,” he added.

“If you’re going to be a fundamentalist regime with no democracy elements, with just fundamentalism, this will not be in the best interest of the Iraqi people or its neighbors,” he said.

Mr Powell has been on a tour of the region to revive the Arab-Israeli peace process following the US-led war in Iraq in March and April that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. —AFP