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foreign briefs:

Israel wants relations with Iraq, says foreign minister

JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was to tell the Iraqi people in an interview Tuesday that the Jewish state would like to have diplomatic relations but will leave it to them to decide. Shalom has recorded an interview with the US-funded Alhurra network to be broadcast at 1700 GMT Tuesday in which he welcomed Monday’s US handover of power to an interim Iraqi government, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told AFP. “The minister said that we would let the Iraqi people decide whether they wanted to have relations,” she said. “He said that Israel would like to have diplomatic ties with all Arab countries and believes there’s no reason for boycotting Israel. We have no territorial dispute with Iraq.” Like many Arab countries, Iraq has never had any diplomatic relations with Israel since its 1948 creation. afp

Argentina ‘fed up with US meddling’: FM

BUENOS AIRES: Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa said Tuesday that Buenos Aires was “fed up” with the top US diplomat for Latin America, Roger Noriega, for interfering in the South American country’s affairs, after he expressed concern over demonstrators. “In all honesty, the Argentine government is fed up with Mr Noriega’s meddling in Argentina’s internal affairs,” Bielsa told the local radio station Del Plata from China, where he is accompanying President Nestor Kirchner on an official visit. Bielsa identified Noriega as the “high-level State Department official” who told two Argentine dailies that the United States was “very concerned” about the activities of poor and unemployed picketers who were blocking roads and taking over the offices of multinational firms. The activists have been staging demonstrations since Argentina’s 2001-2002 financial crisis, according to media reports. Bielsa said he wanted to raise the issue with US Secretary of State Colin Powell but was not able to, as Powell was traveling to Turkey for the NATO summit at the time. afp

Ahern says EU nominates Barroso, Solana unanimously

BRUSSELS: European Union leaders unanimously nominated Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso as next European Commission chief and designated Javier Solana of Spain as the EU’s future foreign minister on Tuesday, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern announced. “The European Council has agreed to the nomination as successor to Romano Prodi in the autumn and he is Jose Manuel Barroso. I am happy to say Prime Minister Barroso’s nomination is by consensus,” Ahern told a news conference. reuters

IAEA wants to inspect Brazil nuclear plant

BRASILIA: Brazil has denied the UN nuclear watchdog access to a uranium-enriching facility, claiming it needs to protect industry trade secrets, AIEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview published Tuesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sought access to the facility in Resende, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, ElBaradei told a local newspaper. ElBaradei told O Globo daily that Brazil should not be an exception to IAEA norms. He granted the interview in Moscow. ElBaradei said the IAEA needed to see the equipment itself because it was the only way to assure that no uranium was being enriched beyond that which had been declared. Brazilian authorities offered to allow IAEA to weigh uranium leaving the facility. afp

US congratulates Paul Martin on win in Canada

WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday congratulated Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on his governing Liberal Party’s holding onto power in general elections. “We congratulate the Canadian people for conducting a vigorous and fair electoral campaign,” State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. “It serves as an example to the hemisphere. We particularly congratulate Prime Minister Paul Martin on (Monday’s) results and we look forward to continuing a close and productive relationship with his government.” Ereli declined to comment on the future makeup of Martin’s government. “I won’t speculate as to how coalition politics are going to work and leave it to the Canadian government to speak to its future policies,” he said. afp

Iraqi transition an illusion, says beheaded US civilian’s father

LONDON: The father of a US civilian beheaded in Iraq on Tuesday dismissed as an illusion trick the handover of power to an Iraqi interim administration as he joined anti-war campaigners on a visit to London. “This transfer of power is nothing more than another nut and shell game of the (US President George W. Bush) and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair coalition,” Michael Berg, 59, said of Monday’s surprise handover two days earlier than planned. “We know that the Iraqi people have not had an election yet and so we do not have a democracy over there, we just have a dictatorship of Bush and Blair,” he said at a press conference for the Stop The War Coalition, in London Berg’s son, Nick, 26, who ran his own communications business, was murdered by Iraqi insurgents last month, after being kidnapped in Baghdad. Three days after his headless body was discovered, a video tape of the execution was posted on a website linked to al-Qaeda, leading to worldwide condemnation. afp

Russia test-launches ballistic missile

MOSCOW: A Russian nuclear submarine successfully test-launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East on Tuesday, the Defence Ministry said. The missile was launched from the Yekaterinburg submarine to the Kura testing ground in Kamchatka, about 7,000 kilometres to the East, the ministry’s press service said. The ITAR-Tass news agency said the RSM-54 missile was the third to be test-launched successfully this year. Two such missiles were to have been tested during naval exercises attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February but failed due to technical glitches. In March, Russia’s naval chief, Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, said one of the failed launches was due to the missile’s age, 17 years, as opposed to its planned lifetime of 7 1/2 years. He said the navy considered the RSM-54 missiles only 95 percent reliable. The Interfax news agency quoted Russian naval spokesman Capt Igor Dygalo as saying that the missile had been launched Tuesday “in connection with the plan of military preparation of the submarine” and that the missile had reached its target on schedule. ITAR-Tass, citing the Defence Ministry, said the missile was launched at 11:25 and hit its target 28 minutes later. ap

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