WASHINGTON, Dec 31: US Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted foreign policy mistakes and sought to assure the outside world that despite the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration's approach "is not defined by pre-emption".

In a broad article in Foreign Affairs magazine released by the State Department on Tuesday, the top US diplomat struck a conciliatory tone toward America's old allies in Europe, called for a broader international role for China, and expressed optimism about a peaceful resolution of the North Korean problem.

He largely sidestepped the question of Iraq, but implicitly took issue with his presumed chief rival inside the administration, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who in September dismissed the decades-old concept of military deterrence as a theory that "has been overtaken by events".

Mr Powell, however, presents a different point of view. "As to pre-emption's scope, it applies only to the undeterrable threats that come from non-state actors such as terrorist groups," he writes in the magazine's January-February issue. "It was never meant to displace deterrence, only to supplement it."

President George Bush's doctrine of pre-emption was spelled out in a strategy paper released by the White House in Sept 2002, one year after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

To the consternation of the outside world, the document made clear the United States would consider it justified to use force pre-emptively to eliminate what it sees as threats to its national security.

The invasion of Iraq, with the stated goal of ridding the country of weapons of mass destruction, is seen as the first instance of the doctrine's implementation. But in his article, Powell argued that "our strategy is not defined by pre-emption".

"Above all, the president's strategy is one of partnerships that strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other US alliances - including the UN," he wrote.

Moreover, the secretary of state admitted to unspecified mistakes committed during President Bush's first three years in office. "It would be churlish to claim that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been error-free from the start," he pointed out. "We are human beings; we all make mistakes."

Powell downplayed the importance of disagreements between the United States, France and Germany over Iraq, describing them as "differences among friends" bound by a partnership "that is based so firmly on common interests and values that neither feuding personalities nor occasional divergent perceptions can derail it".

He underscored the importance of parallel improvement of US relations with Pakistan and India and the need to turn it "into a triangle of conflict resolution".

Powell welcomed improved relations between the United States and China, pointing out they were the best they have been since former US president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing. "Indeed, we welcome a global role for China, so long as China assumes responsibilities commensurate with that role," he wrote. -AFP