ROME, 11 October 2004 — Italy has a three-stage plan on the future of Iraq which could see coalition troops gradually replaced by soldiers from Arab nations, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told an Italian newspaper in an interview published yesterday.
He said the first “fundamental” step was that an Iraqi government, legitimized through elections due in January, made all of its own decisions. “The elections are fundamental. Everything has to be done in coming months so that the Iraqi elections result in a Parliament with strong legitimacy,” Frattini told the newspaper La Repubblica.
The second step was a short-and medium-term strategy on how Iraqi security forces can re-establish control in the country. “The new government must define a plan which progressively hands control of the territory to the Iraqi police and army.
“We think the (US-led) coalition troops could be substituted by troops from Arab countries ... a progressive plan province by province under which Arab troops would replace those of the countries in the coalition,” Frattini said.
“The central question is how to involve the entire Arab world, which wants a stable Iraq but does not have a real role” in the country, he added.
The final step would be rebuilding the country’s social and economic structures, a phase during which “Italy would be strongly involved in strengthening civil society and economic institutions.”
