Blair to seek new UN resolution on Iraq

Tony Blair said today he was seeking a new UN resolution to drive forward the process of transferring sovereignty back to the people of Iraq.

Speaking ahead of talks with President George W Bush, the Prime Minister said it was important that the UN had a greater role in implementing the transition before the June 30 deadline.

He also denied repeated claims that there was a transatlantic rift over how to deal with the growing crisis in Iraq.

He insisted that Britain and the US "share the common aim and purpose" of restoring stability to the war-torn country.

Accompanied by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan after the two held talks in New York, the Prime Minister said: "To find the right political way forward that the circumstances will allow us, at some point in the near future we need to have a new UN Security Council resolution that will allow us to plan the way forward for the political transition in Iraq."

Mr Blair said that the best guarantee of future security for the world would only come if "we succeed in Iraq".

Meanwhile, he dismissed calls, believed to be from Osama bin Laden in a taped message, for Europe to abandon the US-led war on terror.

"I do not think we need Osama bin Laden to start telling us how to handle our political affairs."

Mr Blair will hold crisis talks with Mr Bush in Washington later today amid a growing number of attacks on coalition troops, by insurgents in Iraq, and a spate of kidnappings of foreigners.

Despite past disagreements within the international community over the invasion of Iraq, Mr Blair insisted that all countries now shared the same goal.

"That is a stable and prosperous and democratic Iraq governed by Iraqi people," he said.

"How we get there is obviously the difficult issue, particularly with security at the moment, but our determination to get there... remains undimmed. We have to stand firm."

He was asked about recent reports that London and Washington were split over military tactics in Iraq and the process of political transition.

He said: "We have got a common aim and purpose. The common aim and purpose is crucial." Mr Blair went on: "Whatever disagreements there have been about the wisdom of our action in Iraq - I happen to believe it is right for the reasons that I have given - it is in everyone's interests now to see Iraq become a stable and democratic state.

"On the one side you have got ourselves, the United Nations, all the other countries involved and the vast majority of Iraqi people.

"On the other side you have groups of fanatics or terrorists or people who want to return Iraq to the old ways."

The Prime Minister and Mr Bush are under relentless pressure over the conflict, with questions raised about the entire military strategy.

A year after Saddam Hussein was deposed, military commanders desperately need to restore order across the country - particularly ahead of the June 30 deadline to hand sovereignty back to the Iraqi people.

In grim new developments an Iranian diplomat was assassinated and an Italian security guard became the first of a growing number of foreigners being kidnapped to be murdered by his captors.

Critics argue that the coalition's use of overwhelming firepower is only uniting Iraqis against the occupying forces.

Even the UN on Wednesday criticised the coalition's tactics.

Meanwhile, Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser who has recently returned from working with the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad, said US and UK officials were split on how to administer the country.

During the joint briefing in New York, Mr Annan said that the UN and the international community shared a "common objective" of restoring "the stability and peace in Iraq".

He said the rifts between UN members over the war on Iraq had begun to heal.

Asked whether the war made the world a safer place, as President Bush has stated, Mr Annan said: "Obviously we are in a very difficult world. We have seen heightened terrorist attacks which affect all of us, and we need to come together to deal with that."

Mr Blair's rejection of al Qaida's proposition of a truce with European nations which pull out of Islamic nations echoed the sentiments of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw yesterday.

Mr Straw said: "This is a murderous organisation which seeks impossible objectives by the most violent of means and has said in terms that whilst we love life they love death.

"I'm afraid that it is yet another bare-faced attempt to divide the international community.

"It cannot and will not succeed because everybody knows that there is only one side on which the international community can be in the fight against terrorism."