EU ministers to puzzle, wring hands over Iraq

Iraqi violence will top the agenda when European Union foreign ministers meet in Ireland today, but expect more hand-wringing than solutions.

"The situation has derailed so completely, the instability is so profound now that we have to get international support to deal with the crisis," said a senior EU official ahead of the two-day meeting in the Irish midlands town of Tullamore.

"We should push more than ever for a UN-led role." Dublin, current president of the EU, wants to discuss how the EU can help support the reconstruction and stabilisation of Iraq, and it has drawn up a "question paper" on what lies ahead as the United States prepares to hand back sovereignty.

But, even with a glass of the whisky for which Tullamore is best known, ministers of the 25 current and future members states will be hard pressed to find answers to a crisis that all but a few have watched unfold from the sidelines.

"It will be a reactive discussion rather than construction of a new policy," said one diplomat. "Unfortunately we don't wield much influence."

Diplomats said the meeting would nevertheless be a chance for the EU - so torn by divisions over the US-led invasion of Iraq last year - to find a common position on whether a UN resolution is needed to approve the transition of power on June 30 and on relations with the new Baghdad government.

The foreign ministers will look more widely on how to boost EU ties with Mediterranean and Middle East countries.

Diplomats said that, in contrast to Washington, they would express concern over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to couple a Gaza Strip pullback with strengthening major Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

They will also talk tough on the arson, rioting and expulsion of Serbs that rocked Kosovo last month, sending a clear message to the UN protectorate's majority Albanians that independence cannot be won through violence.

"They will be firm on bringing perpetrators to justice and improving protection for minorities, and they will re-energise the standards-before-status policy," said one diplomat.

Together with the United Nations and the United States, the EU will decide whether Kosovo has met democratic standards before determining its final status - which most Kosovans hope will be independence from Serbia.

The foreign ministers will prepare for a weekend meeting with counterparts from several Asian countries including China, which is pressing the EU to lift a 15-year-old ban on arms sales.

The bloc is divided over whether to end the embargo, which was imposed after the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. France has led calls for it to be scrapped but some member states, following Washington, say China must show better human rights practices.

Another thorny issue is whether Myanmar can join the eight-year-old Asia-Europe (ASEM) partnership despite its political and human rights record. Asian nations say they will accept the EU's 10 new member states in ASEM only if Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are allowed into the grouping.