Finland: Finland's first woman Prime Minister, Ms Anneli Jaatteenmaki, has been forced to resign because she used leaked secret state information on Iraq during parliamentary elections in March.
"If trust goes, it goes. I do not have that trust," Ms Jaatteenmaki told a packed news conference at the parliament. "I did not ask for secret papers," she insisted.
Her resignation caps a tumultuous two days triggered by the admission by a presidential aide that he leaked government information on Iraq to Ms Jaatteenmaki during the election campaign.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mr Antti Kalliomäki will take Ms Jaatteenmaki's place on a temporary basis until a replacement is named.
But despite the resignation, Ms Jaatteenmaki (48) said she would still go to the European Union summit in Thessaloniki, Greece, which begins tonight.
A spokesman for her Centre Party said the party wanted to continue the current government co-operation, which groups the Centre along with the Social Democratic Party and the Swedish People's Party.
Ms Jaatteenmaki's problems overwhelmed her yesterday after her denial that she had sought information on Iraq to help her win power was immediately contradicted by a presidential aide.
Only hours after she told parliament that she had "neither asked for nor got secret Foreign Ministry documents", the aide to the president affirmed she had made such a request.
Presidential aide Mr Martti Manninen told a Finnish news agency that Ms Jaatteenmaki, while in opposition as the Centre Party leader, had approached him before national parliamentary elections in March, asking him for information on Iraq.
"In the meeting Jaatteenmaki was interested in Iraq material and gave me a secret fax number for keeping in contact," Mr Manninen was quoted as saying. "Jaatteenmaki was in contact with me later also by phone."
His comments came just after Ms Jaatteenmaki insisted the faxes she got from him had come as a surprise. "I had not requested these (faxes) and they came as a total surprise to me," Ms Jaatteenmaki told parliament.
She had been accused of using confidential information about talks between her predecessor, Mr Paavo Lipponen, and President Bush on Iraq and other issues as fuel for an election campaign attack on Mr Lipponen, who was seeking a third term. - (Reuters)