EU leaders build bridges over Iraq
abc.net.au
European Union leaders have built bridges among themselves and with the United States to span bitter divisions set off by the Iraq war.
Meeting in Athens to sign a treaty opening their bloc to 10 new members, leaders of the 15 EU states worked on a surprise joint statement on how the United Nations and the European Union could work in Iraq in a way acceptable to Washington.
While the politicians sought harmony, Greek police and thousands of anti-war protests traded tear gas and Molotov cocktail volleys at a central Athens square only a few hundred metres from the summit.
Britain, Washington's ally in the Iraq campaign, and France, which had bitterly opposed military action, sought to calm their pre-war tensions at the meeting.
"We are agreed on the importance of the role of the United Nations," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said after meeting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, also attending the talks near the Acropolis overlooking Athens.
"We agree there should be respect for humanitarian issues, but also respect for political and reconstruction issues that arise ... I would like to see the United States, ourselves, Europe working in partnership together to make that clear."
French President Jacques Chirac signalled that Paris, which until recently had demanded the United Nations should be the sole body entitled to handle the Iraq issue, would be flexible in working with US and British forces now running Iraq.
"Issue by issue, we have to find the right balance between the role of the United Nations, which must be the essential role, and the American and British forces present on the ground," his spokeswoman Catherine Colonna told journalists.
Mr Blair's spokesman said that in their first face-to-face talks since the war, Mr Blair and Mr Chirac spent about 25 minutes chatting with each other in an inner courtyard of the hall where the summit is being held.
The two men discussed issues raised at the summit, including Iraq and the Middle East, in a "perfectly amiable" conversation, the spokesman said.
The conciliatory signals built on statements in recent days from France and Germany, another leading anti-war campaigner, indicating they sought a compromise with the United States after long opposing Washington for waging war without UN backing.
The informal EU summit that opened in Athens earlier in the day had not planned a statement on Iraq because of the split between pro-war Security Council members Britain and Spain and anti-war countries France and Germany, EU diplomats said.
But the four have now agreed on a two-part statement calling for an "important" or "essential" role for the United Nations in rebuilding post-war Iraq and for EU help to stabilise the country after the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein, they said.
The statement, which the Greek presidency will distribute among EU members for approval, reflected the efforts the divided leaders have made in recent days to overcome the bitter splits before and during the US-led assault.
UN role
Washington has been reluctant to let the United Nations take the leading role in rebuilding Iraq, but EU leaders hoped they could find a way to involve the world body with US approval.
"I think there is a growing recognition that the UN should play an important role in the reconstruction of Iraq," said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
"There is a movement that offers hope that a decision can be taken by the UN Security Council in a couple of weeks."
Mr Annan said that renewed unity in the Security Council - where permanent members the United States and Britain squared off against fellow veto-wielders France, Russia and China - could help the EU overcome its own recent splits.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the Iraq crisis showed the EU needed to develop a common foreign policy and name a joint foreign minister, a job he is reported to be seeking.
"The EU wasn't built to cope with questions of war and peace. This has changed in recent years but we are still not there," he told reporters.
The 15 EU leaders and heads of the 10 acceding countries were due later on Wednesday to sign a treaty sealing the bloc's expansion, the largest in its history.
The 10 set to join the bloc in May 2004 are Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus and Malta.
The leaders of other candidate countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, and of future candidates such as Croatia and Serbia as well as Russia were also in Athens for the ceremony.
Police estimated about 7,000 protestors were involved in the anti-war clashes in Athens' central Syntagma Square, which broke out when demonstrators tried to break through police lines to march closer to the EU summit.
After being turned away, the demonstrators marched through the city's nearby diplomatic district and pelted the British, French and Italian embassies with rocks, bottles of paint and more Molotov cocktails.
In another protest, about 100 members of the Greek communist party briefly occupied the British Airways office in the southern seaside suburb of Glyfada. |
