Vatican official says he wanted to hear British assessment of Iraq

Published: 2004-05-18

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, said a recent meeting with his British counterpart, Jack Straw, was an important opportunity to speak directly with one of the major players in the ongoing drama in Iraq. "It was very important for me to hear directly from the British government its assessment about the situation in Iraq," the archbishop said in a May 18 interview with Vatican Radio's One-O-Five Live program. "I had the occasion to stress that the Holy See would like to see, as soon as possible, a United Nations resolution on the transfer of power in Iraq," he said. The Vatican hopes the United Nations will return to Iraq with "a strong mandate to be able to play a vital role in the pacification of the country and in the founding of the country's democratic institutions," he said. During his May 11-13 visit to London, the archbishop also met with the British government's secretaries of state for international development and for Northern Ireland as well as with Gordon Brown, Britain's senior finance minister.

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