Seizing the initiative a day after the announcement of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's capture, France said Monday that it would work with other nations to forgive an unspecified portion of Iraq's immense foreign debt.
The offer, as much a conciliatory gesture to Washington as a hand extended to Baghdad, came a day before James Baker III, a former US secretary of state, was scheduled to arrive in Paris to ask the French for their help in relieving Iraq of its crushing financial obligations.
Washington is eager to lift the debt burden, estimated at more than $120 billion, excluding war reparations owed to Kuwait and Iran, because it will otherwise raise the cost of an Iraqi economic recovery beyond the US' means.
"France, together with other creditors, believes there could be an agreement in 2004," French Foreign Minister Dominque de Villepin told reporters after a meeting here with representatives of Iraq's interim Governing Council.
He said if various conditions regarding Iraq's sovereignty and stability were met, his country "could then envisage cancellation of debts in line with Iraq's basic financing capacity."
Jalal Talabani, an Iraqi Kurdish leader and a member of the Iraqi delegation visiting Paris, called De Villepin's announcement a "gift."
But De Villepin's statements went little beyond France's past statements that as head of the Paris Club, it would treat Iraq's debt problems as it would those of any other overly indebted country.
The Paris Club is an association of 19 industrialized nations formed in 1956 to coordinate the cancellation of debts for financially distressed countries.
He reiterated that there could be no deal until there was a sovereign Iraqi government in place with which to negotiate -- something that will not happen before June.
By announcing France's intentions to the Iraqis on Monday, though, De Villepin avoided the appearance of answering to Washington's call on Tuesday. "This way he can say, `I'm not doing it because the Americans are asking for it but because I believe it's the responsible thing to do for the Iraqis,"' said Dominique Moisi, an expert in Franco-American relations at the French Institute for International Relations.
The French foreign minister, one of the diplomatic world's sharpest critics of Washington's Iraq policy, also seemed eager to strike a conciliatory note in the wake of Saddam's capture. Taking the lead on the debt-reduction issue is the quickest and easiest way for him to put France back in the Iraq reconstruction game on Washington's side.
"The arrest of Saddam Hussein constitutes a chance that we all must take advantage of," De Villepin said.
"France is ready to play a full role in these efforts and to follow the action already undertaken on a bilateral basis as Europeans in the humanitarian domain, of course, and in the cooperative domain, whether it be education, health or even archaeology."
He brushed aside questions about whether debt forgiveness would be linked to participation in US$18.6 billion in US-financed reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
He said the two issues were separate.
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