EU Pursues Central Roles for U.N., Itself in Rebuilding of Iraq

Trying to overcome divisions left by the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq, the European Union on Thursday threw its weight behind a key role for the United Nations in postwar Iraq and said the EU also has a political and economic role to play in the reconstruction of the country.

France, Germany and other countries that had opposed the war in Iraq joined a pro-war camp led by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to issue a carefully worded statement seeking to ease the U.N. back into the battered international decision-making process.

“No issue has so divided the world since the end of the Cold War,” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the summit here, held to welcome 10 nations, most of them former Communist countries, into the EU fold. “It is vital that we heal that division now. The world cannot afford a long period of recrimination.”

Annan spent Wednesday and Thursday shuttling between meetings with leaders including French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov, all of whom had teamed up to block U.N. approval of military action in Iraq.

Their actions had exacerbated conflicts in the European Union between France and Germany, which regard themselves as the leaders of the organization, and Britain, Spain and Italy, which backed the Bush administration’s confrontation with the Iraqi regime.

Moreover, Chirac had irritated future member countries such as Poland, which contributed forces to the war coalition, by criticizing their pro-U.S. stance and hinting at potential retaliation in the EU.

The war issue dominated this week’s proceedings even though Greece, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, had said Iraq would not be a topic for discussion at a meeting whose stated focus was to welcome the members from Central and Eastern Europe.

With Annan the first dignitary to arrive in Athens for the meeting and the last to leave, Iraq “hung over the summit like a sword of Damocles,” one diplomat said.

The joint statement issued Thursday declared that “the U.N. must play a central role, including in the process leading towards self-government for the Iraqi people, utilizing its unique capacity and experience in post-conflict nation-building. [The EU] looks forward to a further strengthening of the U.N.’s involvement in post-conflict Iraq, initially in the coordination of the humanitarian assistance.”

Tellingly, with antiwar countries fearful they will be locked out of lucrative contracts to rebuild a shattered Iraq, the EU reaffirmed its commitment to playing a “significant role” in the reconstruction of the country.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou helped broker the wording of a statement intended to abet a conciliation that began to take shape with the victory of the U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

Blair, who spent less than 24 hours in the Greek capital, met privately with Chirac on Thursday -- their first face-to-face meeting since the war began. Coming two days after President Bush and Chirac had their first telephone conversation since the war began, the sit-down continued an ice-breaking process between Paris and Washington and London.

The 15 EU-member nations appeared to agree that the priority in Iraq is to help the country recover from the Saddam Hussein regime and the war that brought it down. But difficult questions about how the process will work, and which countries or institutions are best prepared to participate, still hung in the air.

“What we are doing is talking about the new Iraq, trying to put behind us the arguments about whether or not the coalition should have taken military action,” British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said Wednesday evening. “The important thing is to try to draw a line behind us over the arguments we had before.”

Faced with a massive security operation in its own capital, and with published polls showing that more than 94% of Greeks opposed the war, Greece told government workers to take the day off Wednesday to ease the traffic headaches caused by sealing off the heart of Athens.

Schools and state services were shut down, nearly turning the usually chaotic city into a ghost town. An army of municipal workers worked around the clock to spruce up the areas the leaders visited, planting shrubs and flowers, painting railings and removing graffiti -- much of it about the war in Iraq.

Nearly 20,000 police officers were deployed on Athens’ streets and special riot troops, carrying batons and shields, patrolled the downtown area opposite the Parliament building.

On Wednesday, police fought with demonstrators who tried to break a police cordon a few hundred yards away from where the leaders were meeting.

Special correspondent Bouras reported from Athens and Times staff writer Rotella from London.