KURDISTAN NEWSLINE

            August 24, 2003

 

 

Jalal Talabani Confers with Australian Foreign Minister Downer

 

Adelaide Aug 22 – The Australian Foreign Minster Alexander Downer today received Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s Secretary General and Presidential Committee member of the Iraqi Governing Council Jalal Talabani and the accompanying delegation.

 

 

Downer stated that he was proud to have participated in the liberation of Iraq, while acknowledging that there still remained a lot of work to be done.

 

Jalal Talabani thanked Mr Downer for the important role Australia played as part of the international coalition and stressed that the mass graves that have been exhumed are a good example of the tragedy the Iraqi people have faced under the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein.

 

Mr Downer stressed that he believed that it was vital that an international force remained in Iraq to maintain stability and continue in the reconstruction efforts, even though coalition forces remain to be targeted by foreign forces and remnants of Saddam's regime.  He said “I would be totally against moving any forces out of Iraq; on the contrary I am in favor of pushing for another UN Security Council resolution to get more troops to help the Americans”.

 

The Foreign Minister believed strongly that the Ba'athist regime in Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction and believed that the information his government had received regarding this fact was credible.

 

At a press conference held after the meeting Downer told the reporters that the Kurds of Iraq had suffered greatly as victims of weapons of mass destruction. He added, that after the discovery of the mass graves how could anyone think that Australia made the wrong decision by taking part in the war of liberation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information please call:

Simko Halmet, PUK Representative in Australia: Tel  0413 959 355