Abdul Jalil Mustafa, Arab News

AMMAN, 23 June 2004 — French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier warned yesterday against sending NATO forces to Iraq, saying such a step will be “counterproductive.”

“I believe the raising of the NATO flag in Baghdad will be counterproductive and have negative repercussions,” Barnier told a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Marwan Muasher.

“There will be no French soldiers in Iraq neither today nor tomorrow nor at any time in future,” he said.

He was responding to US President George W. Bush’s proposal for the involvement of NATO troops in Iraq as part of a US-led multinational force due to replace the present coalition forces in Iraq under the provisions of the UN Security Council resolution 1546.

However, he expressed his government’s readiness to play “a political and economic role” in Iraq’s reconstruction after July 1, when an Iraqi interim government is scheduled to take up power in the country.

“I told Muasher that in consultation with the Iraqi government, we, the French and the Europeans, will be ready as of July 1 to take part in Iraq’s political and economic reconstruction,” Barnier said.

“However, the yardstick for Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s real success will be the handover of real sovereignty as well as its ability to control Iraq’s future in an effective manner,” he added.

Barnier reiterated France’s support for the dispatch of a multinational force to the Gaza Strip to station there after Israel’s planned pullout, but said such a move was “premature.”

“We still support this idea because it represents an element of guarantee (for the Palestinians),” he added.

He pointed out that Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip should be “comprehensive and form part of the road map, otherwise we will again fall in the cycle of violence and bloodshed.”

“We, as part of the European Union, do believe that the Quartet should play a more active role in implementation of the road map,” Barnier said. However, he urged the Palestinian Authority to “play its part in reforming security organs and quelling violence and extremism.”

On his part, Muasher expressed Jordan’s readiness to perform a role in the Egyptian initiative, through “participating in the training of Palestinian security force.”

But, he made such a step conditional on “a total Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and receiving guarantees that the Gaza pullout will be part of the road map”, which provides for Israel’s evacuation of the entire occupied Palestinian areas in the West Bank and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state before the end of 2005.