Cowen urges US to avoid bomb errors

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, has said that the United States should avoid mistakes such as the bombing of a Red Cross warehouse in Afghanistan. But he stopped short of calling for a temporary halt to the bombing campaign to allow humanitarian aid to enter Afghanistan and to let refugees leave the country.

Mr Cowen will meet representatives from aid agencies in Dublin today to discuss ways of improving the delivery of aid to the Afghan people. Speaking in Luxembourg yesterday after a meeting of EU foreign ministers, he said that the amount of food reaching Afghanistan every day needed to be doubled.

The United Nations estimates that 1000 tonnes of food enter Afghanistan each day.

Mr Cowen said that incidents such as the bombing of the Red Cross warehouse were to be regretted but that no military campaign could guarantee that it would inflict no civilian casualties.

"It is important that incidents such as this not be replicated as far as possible," he said.

At yesterday's meeting, the ministers reaffirmed their support for the US-led campaign against Afghanistan and attempted to close rifts that have emerged within the EU over the conduct of the campaign.

Belgium's Foreign Minister, Mr Louis Michel, this week criticised Mr Tony Blair's rhetoric since September 11th as excessively bellicose and accused the British Prime Minister of "overreacting". Sweden's Ms Anna Lindh yesterday urged Washington to tell the truth promptly about such incidents as the Red Cross bombing.

Mr Michel adopted a chastened tone yesterday, appearing to draw back from his criticism of Mr Blair.

"I have already had an opportunity to say how well I think of Tony Blair. Our relations with the UK are excellent. I support the UK absolutely," he said.

Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, told the meeting that the bombing phase of the campaign in Afghanistan would continue until the Taliban's military capability was damaged further. But he said that, as the campaign progressed, tactics would change.

The ministers discussed the future of Afghanistan following the overthrow of the Taliban and the EU's foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, announced that he would meet the exiled former Afghan king, Zahir Shah, in Rome on Sunday.

Belgium will present a proposal on Afghanistan's future to a summit of EU leaders in Ghent tomorrow. The proposal envisages a broadly based government that would include both the Northern Alliance and representatives of Aghanistan's Pashtun majority from which the Taliban draws most of its support.

The United Nations would play a central role in the transition to democracy and UN peacekeeping forces would be deployed in Afghanistan for at least two years.

Mr Cowen said it was too early to discuss the make-up of such a force but suggested that soldiers from Islamic states should play a leading role in it.

In a confidential letter to the ministers, the External Affairs Commissioner, Mr Chris Patten, said that efforts to stamp out international terrorism should address the "wellsprings" of radical discontent.

He cited "the unacceptable divide between the very rich and the unimaginably poor" and "other aspects of what has sometimes been called 'the dark side of globalisation'. "