Region must help war-torn country, says former UN envoy

Dubai: Hours before the release of the details of a high-level US Study Group on Iraq - which included recommendations to talk to Iran and Syria, former UN Special Envoy to Iraq called on all Iraq's neighbours to "help" Iraqis end the conflict in their war-torn country.

Lakhdar Brahimi, also in an interview with Gulf News, stressed that "fixing" Iraq will benefit the entire region.

"All neighbouring countries of Iraq have a huge stake in [solving] what is happening [in Iraq]. Not one single country. Not only Iran, not only Syria," Brahimi, former UN special envoy to Iraq said.

"If Iraq is fixed, it will be in their [neighbouring] interests," added the veteran diplomat and former Algerian foreign minister.

Brahimi, who was named Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General in 2004 and headed a UN team studying the feasibility of holding elections in Iraq following the US invasion said neighbouring countries should go together, not individually to Iraq.

"Individual countries have friends and enemies there. They might be well received by their friends, but attacked by their enemies if they visit Iraq individually".

Acceptable

However, if they go together and assure the Iraqi people that they are there to "help" them see the light at the end of the tunnel and not to interfere in their lives, "this would be acceptable to the Iraqis."

Brahimi added the "Americans also have to take part," since they keep tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq and they are the sole superpower in the globe.

Iraqis themselves, "have to have all the Iraqi parties involved [in the political process] At the end of the day, it is their country."

The former Algerian foreign minister, who is currently a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in New Jersey disagrees with what many believe - that it is only the Americans who should fix the mess they created in Iraq on the basis "you created it, you fix it."

He expressed hope that all countries in the region, on both levels, the government and civil societies, will realise that what is happening in Iraq is "extremely dangerous" and will extend to other countries.

Quoting an Iraqi religious cleric during a Friday sermon as saying "in civil war, there are no losers and winners. Everybody loses," Brahimi added "problems are connected and opportunities are connected".

Addressing "urgently", both the Iraqi issue and the Palestinian question "is absolutely in the interest of the world".