PARIS, September 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – France Monday, September27 , swiftly responded to a US proposal to hold an international conference on Iraq, insisting any such conference ought to discuss the question of whether the US-led forces should withdraw from the country, and should also include representatives of the Iraqi armed resistance.

Describing the situation in Iraq as a "black hole," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, whose country opposed the US-led invasion, hinted that France could make discussion of the withdrawal of foreign forces a condition for agreeing to the conference, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"It is an issue which should be on the agenda of such a conference, if we want it to take place," he told France Inter radio.

A day earlier, US Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested the holding of an international conference on the situation in Iraq.

He also said that it could take place in October, which would put it just before the US presidential election.

Resistance Included

Barnier said that any conference should include "different communities and countries of the region as well as all (Iraqi) political groups, including those that have chosen the path of armed resistance."

"The situation in Iraq is one of chaos with general insecurity even in the Green Zone" in Baghdad, containing the headquarters of the interim government and the US embassy, he said.

"This chaos runs the risk of destabilizing, of drawing in the whole region. I have compared it to a black hole. We have to get out of this black hole, this spiral of violence, and launch negotiations and the political process," the minister said.

"We are in a process set out by a UN resolution (1546), and we must stick to it," Barnier said. The essential stages were "democratic elections ... a new constitution with a referendum, and then the question of the international forces will have to be asked," he said.

Washington never admitted the existence of Iraqi resistance, insisting "insurgents" were made of remnants of Saddam Hussein’s loyalists and foreign militants.

Observers see the French "conditions", especially the inclusion of Iraqi armed resistance in the proposed conference, was more than likely to irk Washington, even to force it to abandon the proposal altogether.

UN Frame

Powell said the international conference could take place in a Middle East capital such as Cairo or Amman, and that it should be attended by the G8 group of industrialized nations as well as Iraq's neighbors including Iran and Syria.

Barnier, however, said that any such conference should also take place within the framework of the United Nations.

What was important was "not to know if it (the conference) will be held before of after elections" in Iraq scheduled for January, but "how to make it successful and useful."

While Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, during his visit to both Britain and the United States last week, insisted elections in Iraq would take place as scheduled, Powell has cast heavy doubts on the prospect Sunday.

"They do not want the Iraqi people to vote for their own leaders in a free, democratic election," Powell said on ABC’s "This Week" show, referring to Iraqi resistance.

"And because it's getting worse, we will have to increase our efforts to defeat it, not walk away and pray and hope for something else to happen."

EU Questions Date

Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana cautiously welcomed Monday the US calls for an international conference on Iraq, saying it could be a "positive" step although it remains unclear how soon it can be held.

Solana said it was unclear if such a meeting -- gathering Iraq's interim government, its neighbors, Group of Eight (G8) states, UN Security Council members and the EU -- could be organized before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan starts in mid-October.

"It's the will of everybody to have this type of meeting with the hope that it will be constructive and positive meeting," he told reporters in Brussels, after talks with NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

"About the date I cannot be sure ... I don't know if it is possible (for it to be) before or after the Ramadan," he said.

http://www.islamonline.org/English/News/2004-09/27/article05
.shtml