Britain resuming diplomatic ties with Iraq
Foreign secretary Jack Straw has announced that the UK is set to restore diplomatic relations with Iraq for the first time in 12 years.
British diplomats will return to Baghdad this weekend led by Christopher Segar, the former embassy’s deputy head of mission.
A de facto embassy will be established in the Iraqi capital for the first time since the previous office was evacuated in January 1991 and will be given full embassy status once the interim government in Iraq is in place.
Making the announcement that diplomatic relations between Britain and Iraq will reconvene, Mr Straw said, ‘I hope that they will see this deployment as a further sign of our determination to help Iraq return to its rightful place within the international community, as befits a nation and a people with such a rich history and culture.’
Three containers of provisions for the ‘flat-pack’ embassy will be flown into Baghdad and the whole operation can be set-up within a few hours. The embassy will initially be located on the cricket pitch of the former British embassy until the building itself can be declared structurally sound.
Mr Segar will be working for the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, where he will be instrumental in putting together the political reconstruction of Iraq.
French diplomats returned to Baghdad immediately after the conflict and Russian ambassadors remained in place during the war.
In an interview published in The Spectator magazine on Thursday, defence secretary Geoff Hoon revealed that members of the former Iraqi regime now surrendered to the coalition had been ‘proving co-operative’ with allied inquiries about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
US president George W Bush is expected to announce today that major combat in Iraq is over, though is unlikely to signal an end to the conflict entirely.
He is set to address the American people from the deck of a homebound aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, at around 0100 GMT on Friday morning.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president had consulted General Tommy Franks, commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, and would choose his words carefully, stopping short of declaring the war over.
