Today's Date:

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IRAQ

THE MINISTER – (...) As I have said, there was very broad agreement on the need for the United Nations to have a central role. It’s important for the legitimacy of the process, it’s important for its effectiveness and obviously essential if we want to maintain the unity of the international community so that it may contribute to resolving this painful crisis.

I believe it’s clearly still premature to go into detail regarding both what the United Nations’ role can be and the organization of this reconstruction, which must be ambitious: administrative, political, social and economic reconstruction. (...) The challenges are huge in the current Iraq situation. The important thing is for everybody to direct their energies to the task in hand. For the moment, as I’ve said, there’s the urgent need to deal with the humanitarian situation (...) which is the prime concern of the Iraqi people. (...) There will inevitably be a phase during which the country is made safe and secure and this is already under way in much of Iraq. We must ensure that the country is totally secure and that the operation ensures Iraq’s unity and integrity, the security of her people, and her security within the region. Here, as you can see, there’s a lot of work; as soon as we get on to talking about the actual reconstruction, the United Nations, which is the authority with international legitimacy, is obviously indispensable, and this is why we’re talking about it having a central role. The United States and Britain, in the communiqué published a few days ago, speak of a vital role. I want to believe that we're talking about the same thing. In any case, we have to consider what is actually happening on the ground, where there’s urgent need for humanitarian action. I believe this is an imperative for everyone.

MIDDLE EAST

On the Middle East, as we have said, there is the necessity to publish and implement the roadmap. (...) It is important to make headway in order to try to make it possible to bring peace to all the region's countries. We want to believe that the Iraqi people can today regain hope. It is important for all the region's peoples also to be able to move towards peace and, in this respect, [resolution of] the Middle East crisis is obviously essential. We all know the extent to which this is a running sore for the peoples of the Arab world. And the international conference which we refer to in the conclusions of our meeting today would obviously be the opportunity for the whole international community to come together and give a decisive impetus, to signal its determination to move forward together precisely in order to take up this major challenge.

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FALL OF BAGHDAD/US

THE MINISTER – With the fall of Saddam Hussein, a dark era is obviously drawing to a close. A dark era in the region’s history, a dark era in Iraq's history and we welcome this. (...) We have to understand what has actually gone on, everything. First of all, the suffering, great suffering endured over years, decades by the Iraqi people. Suffering which the Iraqi people are still enduring today through the war. And this is why we are stressing the priority which the international community has to give to addressing the urgent humanitarian needs. I'm thinking too, going beyond Iraq, of the feelings of the Arab world. Feelings which are mixed ones of frustration, injustice and sometimes even of humiliation. We have to see to it that the whole region can share this hope felt today by the Iraqi people and this is why we are highlighting the importance of moving forward in the quest for peace for the whole of that region (...) and of moving forward on the path to a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (...) The whole international community must make active efforts to do this and here too the United Nations has a special role to play./.