Iraq is world's problem, UN's Ban says in talks with Bush

Jul 17, 2007, 21:14 GMT

Washington - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that instability in Iraq was a 'problem of the whole world' during a meeting with US President George W Bush on Tuesday.

Ban said the United Nations was ready to offer support to the Iraqi government as it works to quell sectarian violence and bring about political reconciliation between warring religious factions.

'We are going to help their political facilitation as well as economic and social reconstruction,' Ban said. 'This is the problem of the whole world.'

Ban's talks with Bush in Washington came a day after the UN head warned against an 'abrupt withdrawal' of forces from Iraq, as US legislators consider imposing a pull-out timetable for US troops.

'Great caution should be taken for the sake of the Iraqi people,' Ban said in a New York press conference Monday. 'The international community cannot and should not abandon them. Any abrupt withdrawal or decision may lead to a further deterioration of the situation in Iraq.'

Bush on Tuesday again warned that a withdrawal of forces from Iraq would create a safe haven for the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, which was already a key actor in Iraq's spiralling violence.

'These people have sworn allegiance to the very same man who ordered the attack on September the 11th, 2001, Osama bin Laden,' Bush said. 'And they want us to leave parts of the world, like Iraq, so they can establish a safe haven from which to spread their poisonous ideology.'

Bush and Ban said they discussed a range of issues during their meeting in Washington, including Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, climate change, and UN reform.

Ban said he had invited Bush to a high-level meeting on climate change to be held on the fringes of the UN summit in September.

Ban reiterated that the UN planned to 'step up the political process' in Darfur, where fighting between government-backed Arab militias and African rebels has killed some 300,000 people and driven millions more from their homes in the last few years.

Ban said on Monday that he hoped a so-called hybrid UN-African Union peace force could be deployed to the region as soon as September.

'I am going to step up efforts to deploy hybrid operations as soon as possible in Darfur, to resolve this issue as soon as possible,' Ban said Tuesday.