The Green Party has called on the Minister for Foreign Affairs to make a "forthright" statement about the Irish position on any future UN role in Iraq.
|
|
Mr Cowen: accused of behaving 'disgracefully'
|
The Green Party's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr John Gormley, accused Mr Cowen of behaving "disgracefully" during the war on Iraq by "not clarifying the Irish position until the United States clarified it for him by showing complete contempt for a multilateral approach".
"The Green Party, therefore, demands that Minister Cowen now makes the Irish position clear by making a forthright statement on the matter as soon as possible," Mr Gormley said.
He said Mr Cowen needed to be "extremely cautious" in formulating Ireland's position and added that the United Nations should not be used as a way of "picking up the pieces for America's ill-advised intervention".
"The US, which began this illegal, unjust and totally counter-productive war is now seeking to rid itself of the Iraqi mess which it has created," he said.
"Unfortunately all of the predictions made by the Green Party before the war are now coming to pass. . . . The US was wholeheartedly assisted in this ill-advised adventure by the Irish Government," Mr Gormley said, adding Mr Cowen should "learn from this mistake".
"If the US chose to ignore the UN, the UN should now ignore the US until such time as the US is prepared to give-up its leading role in Iraq".The Green Party TD added that Iraq must have control over its own resources and must be in a position to make its own decisions on an international stage.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs rejected the Green Party's accusations and said Mr Cowen had made his position clear several times on the UN's role in Iraq. "The Government's position is that the UN should be central to reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in Iraq," he said.
He referred to statements made last month by UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan on the role of the international body and said the Minister "supports fully" Mr Annan's position. He said any wider definition of the UN role in Iraq was "for the Security Council to decide".