French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner publicly apologized yesterday "for having interfered in Iraqi affairs" for suggesting that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki stand down.
"If the prime minister wants me to excuse myself for having interfered in Iraqi affairs in such a direct way, then I do so willingly," he said on French radio station RTL.
Maliki on Sunday demanded an official apology from Paris after Kouchner indicated, in the online edition of Newsweek that the Shiite prime minister had to go.
"I just had [US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] on the phone 10 or 15 minutes ago, and I told her, `Listen, he's got to be replaced,'" Kouchner was quoted as telling Newsweek.
"Many people believe the prime minister ought to be changed. I don't know if that will go through, though, because it seems [US] President [George W.] Bush is attached to Mr Maliki. But the government is not functioning," he was quoted as saying.
Maliki angrily demanded an apology from France, saying: "In the past you backed the former [Iraqi president Saddam Hussein'] regime. Today we were happy with you and then you decided to support the former regime's loyalists."
Speaking yesterday, Kouchner said: "I believe that he [Maliki] did not understand, or that I did not stress enough that these had been remarks that I had heard from my Iraqi interlocuteurs."
While expressing his apologies, Kouchner added: "I am not alone in making some criticism in the face of a hotbed of tension and daily outrages that anger the world."
"I should have said, once again, and I repeat it, that these were remarks held by my interlocuteurs that I had just come from hearing. If they had been misinterpreted, I am sorry," he said.
In an op-ed article yesterday in the International Herald Tribune, Kouchner said France was ready to act as a mediator in Iraq, arguing that there could only be a political solution, not a military one.
He also appealed for the UN and Iraq's neighbors to take a more active role.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS