PARIS, Aug 29: Citing the “risk of chaos” in Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac urged the United States on Friday to give the United Nations a key role in overseeing an end to the occupation.

In a speech setting out French foreign policy to an annual gathering of ambassadors in Paris, Chirac also touched on other topics — North Korea, Iran, NATO, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and globalisation — that brought up frequent references to Washington.

But it was his comments on Iraq that were the most strident.

“Confronted with the risk of chaos, an approach based on security is necessary but is not sufficient. The response must be political,” he said.

“The transfer of power and sovereignty to the Iraqis themselves is the only realistic option,” Chirac said.

“This must be put in place without delay, within the framework of a process which the United Nations alone is able to make legitimate,” he said.

France has for months advocated a UN role in Iraq and Washington this week suggested that it may be ready to allow some UN invovlement in the face of a climbing number of troops deaths and the soaring financial cost.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Tuesday that his government was mulling several ideas, including having a multinational force under UN leadership but with a US general remaining in command.

France and other countries, including India, Germany and Russia, have balked at a US request to send troops to bolster the occupying forces, saying they would only consider such a deployment if it was under the UN flag.

In his speech, Chirac insisted on the primacy of the United Nations and its Security Council, on which the United States and France both have veto power.

Washington’s decision to go outside the Security Council in waging war on Iraq went against the “coherent political project” of building a planetary democracy that resisted “the temptation of unilateralism,” he said.—AFP