February 3, 2004

U.N. must help build new Iraq but quick elections 'unrealistic,' Romania's foreign minister says

By EDITH M. LEDERER

Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) _ The United Nations must return and help build a stable democratic Iraq that can serve as an example to developing countries and the greater Middle East _ but quick elections are unrealistic, Romania's foreign minister said.

Mircea Geoana, whose country joined the U.N. Security Council last month for a two-year term, discussed Iraq on Monday with ambassadors from the United Nation's 15 council nations. They spoke at a private lunch where the dispatch of a U.N. team to study the feasibility of elections was at the top of the agenda.

"My feeling from the conversation (was) that this (team) will be leaving in the next days or so, not weeks," he told a news conference afterward at the Romanian cultural center. "They will be going, by all means."

The U.S government asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send a team to study the feasibility of early elections after Iraq's leading Shiite cleric demanded that the provisional government slated to take power by July 1 be elected rather than chosen in a series of regional caucuses.

U.S. officials believe elections cannot be organized as quickly as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Hussein al-Sistani wants _ a view backed by Annan and Geoana, who are both heading to Washington on Tuesday for talks with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Annan will also meet U.S. President George W. Bush.

It is "unrealistic for us to believe that we'll be able to organize full-blown, fully democratic ... elections in a big country like Iraq is only a few months time," Geoana said. "Now, probably, the discussion will be heading into which will be the mix of solutions to enable us to transfer authority to a form of elected Iraqi authorities."

At Monday's lunch, the idea of caucuses was raised as well as the possibility of choosing "electors," the Romanian minister said.

"There are lots of options on the table of how we can do this," he said. "The No. 1 issue is how can we ensure the security of the election process, even if it's more limited _ if it's caucuses by regions or subregions."

Geoana said he believes suicide bombings on Saturday at the headquarters of the two main Kurdish parties in Irbil in northern Iraq that killed at least 67 people were a sign of opposition to elections, "a clear signal that there are forces inside that are opposing the process."

Nonetheless, he urged the United Nations to return to Iraq.

Annan pulled the U.N.'s international staff out of the country in October after two bombings at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad _ one killed 22 people, including top U.N. evnoy Sergio Vieira de Mello _ and a spate of attacks on humanitarian targets.

"I think the return of the U.N. is something which is indispensible," Geoana said. "In the coming months I think it will be very difficult for us to organize any sort of elections, either full-blown or limited, without some form of U.N. involvement."

He said U.N. financial and development institutions were already working to help rebuild the country, but its political involvement will depend on the results of the upcoming mission to study elections, and on the security situation.

Romania would like the United Nations to return with both its resources and "its political legitimacy, even if it's late in the game," Geoana said.

'"Without doing Iraq well," he warned, "we'll have a huge problem on our hands in both the Middle East and greater Middle East and we'll go back to the same question...: Which will be the next rogue regime that will be harboring terrorists and weapons of mass destruction?"

Eliminating a regime "that needed to go anyway" will also serve as "an example for the rest of the developing world," Geoana said.