Europe Plays Growing Role in Helping Iraqis Build Better Future

US Department of State:

"Europe Plays Growing Role in Helping Iraqis Build Better Future
State's Fried testifies on U.S.-European challenges and opportunities

Despite past differences on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Europe and the United States increasingly are working together to promote stability in Iraq and to meet a growing number of global challenges, a senior U.S. diplomat says.

The United States and Europe are working together “to promote freedom and prosperity in the world,” Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, said in congressional testimony March 8.

“Our common effort seeks to extend the freedom and prosperity we enjoy beyond the borders of Europe, not just to provide for our own security but to improve the security and prosperity of the world as a whole,” he told the Europe and Emerging Threats Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee.

Fried said that in 2005 the United States and the European Union (EU) co-hosted a conference on Iraq that was attended by ministerial-level officials from more than 80 countries “and which reaffirmed the international community's support for Iraq's democratic future.”

The United States and its European allies, Fried said, have made “major advances” in Afghanistan, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will expand its presence in 2006 to southern Afghanistan."