EU plans to help Iraq hold elections, train police

The European Union discussed proposals yesterday to help stabilise Iraq and organise elections there despite lingering differences among member states over the US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein.

EU foreign ministers debated plans to help Iraq's interim government organise elections planned for January and to train police, border guards and customs officials, said Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, who led an EU fact-finding mission there last weekend and whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

The EU, which has so far given only humanitarian aid and a little cash for reconstruction, wants to support elections, back the UN presence in Iraq and help crisis management work.

The EU's executive Commission has committed €200 million this year and the same amount in 2005 for reconstruction.

Diplomats said it was clearly not safe at present to send European trainers, judicial officials or election monitors.

But an EU diplomat said the bloc was likely to agree to provide $26 million that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the United Nations needs for its own security in Iraq.

Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar will visit Brussels on September 14 for talks with heads of EU institutions, and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has been invited to attend the next regular EU summit in early November, the diplomats said.

EU heavyweights France and Germany led opposition to last year's US-led invasion of Iraq, while Britain, Italy, Poland, Denmark and Portugal supported it.