The Hindu : National : Natwar to meet Colin Powell

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

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National

Natwar to meet Colin Powell

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, JUNE 9. The question of India considering the dispatch of troops to Iraq will arise only if there is a specific request from the United Nations itself or a "fully sovereign" government in Iraq, the External Affairs Ministry spokesman told presspersons today.

He said the External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, who leaves for Washington tomorrow morning to attend the funeral of the former United States President, Ronald Reagan, will meet the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, on Thursday.

In a carefully-worded response to the new U.N. Security Council resolution 1546 on Iraq, the spokesman said: "We welcome the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of the resolution on Iraq. The role of the U.N. has also been unanimously accepted and we expect that the U.N. will play a central role in the developing situation in Iraq. We see the endorsement of the interim government in Iraq as the first step towards the transparent transfer of full sovereignty to the people of Iraq." For India, the "priority" now should be to ensure an early return to "conditions of security and normality" for all the people of Iraq.

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