PARIS, 10 June 2004 — The new UN resolution mapping out Iraq’s future received broad international backing yesterday, even from governments that have been sharply critical of Washington’s Iraq policy.
But several nations, including US allies in Iraq, cautioned that there remained much to be done to restore stability in the volatile country and voiced fears the resolution could trigger more violence.
For US President George W. Bush however, the resolution came as a lifeline, enabling him to smooth international tensions over Iraq and burnish his diplomatic credentials ahead of his re-election bid in November.
It gave him an important diplomatic victory as he opened a Group of Eight summit in the US state of Georgia, and was broadly seen as a means of healing the breach that opened up over the US-led invasion of Iraq in March last year.
Bush called Tuesday’s unanimous vote in the UN Security Council for the resolution “a great victory for the Iraqi people”.
He said the international community “showed that it stands side by side with the Iraqi people”.
But Australian Prime Minister John Howard, an important Bush ally, warned that the resolution — which envisages the handing over of sovereign power to an Iraqi interim government at the end of this month — could spur yet more unrest. “I think what it will do in the short-term, it might strengthen the resolve of some people to indulge in more violence,” Howard told reporters in Perth. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the resolution was “equitable and fair”, adding: “I think all sides should be able to work with it.”
But he warned that the threat of continued violence could place limits on the UN’s freedom of action in Iraq.
The resolution calls for the creation of a dedicated force to protect staff working with the United Nations, which withdrew its employees from Iraq after 22 people were killed in the bombing of its Baghdad office last August.
Even countries that have been implacably opposed to the US-led invasion, including three veto-wielding members of the Security Council — China, France and Russia — supported the resolution.
China welcomed it as “a milestone that marks an end to the past and a beginning to the future”. China’s UN ambassador Wang Guangya was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying Beijing was ready to participate in Iraq’s economic reconstruction.
Catherine Colonna, spokeswoman for French President Jacques Chirac, said the resolution was “an important text for pursuing the political process in Iraq”.
France, which led opposition to the US invasion, hoped the situation in Iraq would be better after June 30, Colonna said. Paris also hoped the international community would have a better chance of succeeding in its effort at political and economic stabilization and reconstruction, she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the resolution was “a major step forward.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, another fierce critic of the war, said the resolution would bring more stability to Iraq and give its people “more of a chance”.
Bush’s closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, called the resolution “an important milestone for the new Iraq” and a show of support for democratic reform 14 months after the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
“We all now want to put the divisions of the past behind us and unite behind the vision of a modern, democratic and stable Iraq that can be a force for good, not just for Iraqis but for the whole region and thus the whole world,” he said.
Ireland, currently the president of the 25-member European Union, said the resolution and the broad international support behind it would “help stabilize the new government and contribute to the restoration of peace and stability in Iraq”.
