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France russia germany want rebuilding role { April 4 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04CND-FRANCE.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/international/worldspecial/04CND-FRANCE.html
April 4, 2003
France, Russia and Germany Want Role in Rebuilding Iraq
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
PARIS, April 4 — A day after the United States and its European allies agreed on significant international cooperation in rebuilding Iraq, France, Russia, and Germany sought today to stake out as extensive a United Nations role as possible in reconstructing the shattered country.
Meeting in Paris, the foreign ministers of the three countries called for the United Nations to be given an immediate role in dealing with an "emergency humanitarian situation" in Iraq. Their remarks underscored the gap that remains in detail over how broad the United Nations role should be.
Speaking one day after Secretary of States Colin L. Powell met with the foreign ministers of 23 European countries, the ministers also called for the earliest possible halt to the fighting in Iraq.
The Russian foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, who joined with France last month in thwarting a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the war, said today, "We must insist today on the earliest possible cessation of hostilities."
Addressing a joint news conference after their meeting, Mr. Ivanov said: "The earlier the war is finished the better it will be, including for the United States."
On Thursday, Mr. Powell said that the coalition led by Britain and the United States would play, at least initially, the leading role in Iraq, but that they were prepared to cooperate with the international community and most notably the United Nations.
The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin said it was "absolutely natural" that in the "security phase, the forces present on the ground have a specific responsibility."
Standing with Mr. Ivanov at the news conference, he added that, "there should be no discussion either on the principle or on the terms" of United Nations participation in Iraq.
"No country or countries can hope to win the war alone," he said. "Nobody can hope to build peace alone."
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged today that a post-war Iraq would be run by Iraqis, not by British or American officials, and that British troops would not remain in Iraq any longer than necessary.
Mr. Blair has been treading a thin line between American insistence that its officials be able to deal with situations in postwar Iraq without having to obtain permission from an outside authority and the insistence of some European powers that the United Nations take on an organizing role as early possible.
Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who sided with France in opposing a Security Council resolution for war, said there was a "very broad convergence of views on the central role of the United Nations."
There was considerable difference in tone from the last meeting the three ministers held in Paris on March 5. Then, France and Russia threatened to use their vetoes as permanent Security Council members to block any authorization of force in Iraq. Germany is a nonpermanent Council member.
Though some European governments have insisted on having some degree of influence on the shape of postwar Iraq, insisting for instance on the earliest possible involvement of Iraqis in a postwar government, Mr. Ivanov said it was "premature to talk of modalities after the war as long as the hostilities continue."
"Our efforts are aimed above all at ending the war and resolving the humanitarian problems," he said. Emphasizing that the Europeans sought a harmonious relationship with the United States, he said, "We address these words to our partners, with whom we are maintaining dialogue, since the end of the war can only profit everyone."
But Mr. De Villepin appeared to suggest that United Nations involvement should go even further than just humanitarian assistance. There should, he said, be assurances of the territorial integrity of postwar Iraq and the equitable distribution of reconstruction work on the basis of public tenders.
"The first emergency is humanitarian," he said. He added that, "every outlook for the future of Iraq should take into account the state of Iraq after the war."
Describing Iraq as a "country whose unity is fragile," he said that "in an open crisis of such importance the very principle of international legitimacy is a problem to which we are all attached and about which there can be no discussion."
Mr. De Villepin criticized the awarding of contracts to United States companies for the reconstruction of Iraq. French businessmen have grown increasingly nervous recently by the prospect that the United States, upset over French leadership in the effort to block the war, might punish French companies by boycotting their products or closing markets and contracts to the French.
"Iraq is not a cake or an El Dorado to be divided up," Mr. De Villepin said. "These initiatives do not take into consideration the world as it really is."
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