Kouchner visit shows new stance on Iraq

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner discussed investment projects to help rebuild Iraq yesterday on a visit to the country whose 2003 invasion by US-led troops Paris strongly opposed.

Kouchner began his two-day tour with a visit to the southern city of Nassiriya where he held talks with Shi'ite Vice-President Abel Abdul-Mahdi, a French-educated economist, and provincial governor Aziz Kadhim Alwan.

"The visit represents the re-engagement of France, and through it the European Union and the international community, in Iraq," a French diplomatic official in Paris said.

The official said Kouchner would inaugurate a new French embassy office in Arbil in northern Iraq.

France, which takes over the EU's rotating presidency in July, has said it will lead a drive for greater EU involvement in rebuilding Iraq and has offered to host reconciliation talks.

It was Kouchner's second visit to Iraq, nine months after he made the first visit to the country by a top French official since the beginning of the US-led war.

Kouchner discussed the possibility of French companies investing in Iraq at the meeting with the Iraqi officials in Nassiriya, said Abdul Hussein Dawod, spokesman for the provincial governor.

He also visited a nearby archaeological site.

Kouchner told reporters in Nassiriya he wanted to encourage tourism to Nassiriya and that France was ready to invest in projects there if the Baghdad government agreed.

Kouchner was due in Baghdad later yesterday where he was expected to hold talks with President Jalal Talabani and parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

Former French President Jacques Chirac led international opposition to the invasion of Iraq, but new President Nicolas Sarkozy has sought warm relations with Washington since his election a year ago.

Kouchner, one of the few French politicians who backed military intervention in Iraq, was due to hold talks today with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Kouchner was forced to apologise last August for having said that Maliki should be replaced.

Maliki demanded the apology after Kouchner was quoted by Newsweek magazine as saying the Iraqi government was not working and that Maliki should be replaced, possibly with Abdul-Mahdi.

Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, will also meet humanitarian groups and the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly. Chaldeans belong to a branch of the Roman Catholic Church practising an ancient Eastern rite and form Iraq's biggest Christian group.

Earlier this year, Kouchner proposed granting 500 visas to Iraqi Christians whom he said suffered particularly in the country's sectarian violence. However, Roman Catholic Cardinal Leonardo Sandri has said Iraqi Christians seeking asylum in the West should not receive special treatment based on religion.