French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called on Europe on Tuesday to play a bigger role in Iraq because "the Americans will not be able to get this country out of difficulty alone".
"Europe must play a role ... and I hope that other foreign ministers will come and visit Iraq," Kouchner told France's RTL Radio in an interview from Baghdad. He did not say what that role should be.
Kouchner is the first French minister to visit Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. France, then under President Jacques Chirac, strongly opposed it and angered President George W. Bush by refusing to join his "Coalition of the Willing".
Chirac's successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, has since sought to improve ties with Bush, and Kouchner's visit is seen as a symbolic sign of the new French policy on Iraq.
Kouchner said after three days of talks with Iraq's leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, it was clear there was a lack of trust between the different groups.
"I felt that there is a lack of trust among the different groups and leaders. Maybe the trust between the people is more than that," Kouchner told reporters through an Arabic translator after talks with Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd.
Iraq's national unity government is paralysed by infighting, with political blocs representing the country's majority Shi'ite Muslims and minority Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities reluctant to compromise to reach a proper power-sharing deal.
The slow political progress towards national reconciliation has frustrated Washington. Washington says it has deployed 30,000 extra troops in the country to give Iraq's political leaders time to reach a political accommodation and reconcile the warring sides.
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