Today's Date:

Arrest of Saddam Hussein

Paris, 14 December 2003

1. As President Chirac emphasized, we are all delighted at Saddam Hussein's arrest.

This is a major development in an Iraq crisis which has been at the heart of the international community's concerns for several months.

With this arrest, the page of Iraq's dictatorship has thus been turned. The whole international community must welcome this.
It is a very strong symbol for the Iraqi people, who can put a tragic period of their history behind them and now look to the future. A future which lies in their hands.

So we have a chance to find a way out of the crisis. We must, all together, seize it.

2. It is first up to the Iraqis to mobilize to build a new Iraq:

- the objective must be to preserve the country's unity and stability. We really hope that thanks to this arrest the spiral of violence can be broken.

- We hope that the situation thereby created will lead to the reconciliation of everyone, an essential condition for a swift return to Iraqi sovereignty and the emergence of a real democracy. Everyone must have their part to play in the political process, which has to involve all those who reject violence.

3. It also gives the international community encouragement to regain its unity. There is today a path [mapped out] for Iraq's reconstruction. It is up to us all to embark on it, and when doing so:

- to involve, of course, the neighbouring countries with a view to reintegrating Iraq into her environment,

- and also give the United Nations its full role in order to guarantee the legitimacy of the process.

4. On her side, France is ready to play her full role, in a framework of close cooperation with all her partners.

This is what I told Colin Powell, whom I talked to at the beginning of the afternoon and congratulated.

This question will be at the heart of our talks tomorrow, in Paris, with the Iraqi delegation led by Mr al-Hakim. He will be having a meeting with President Chirac here at the Foreign Ministry. We shall tell him of our determination to move forward on humanitarian aid and police training and with our cooperation in other essential sectors of the Iraqi economy./.