STATEMENT BY THE SPOKESPERSON

FRENCH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

April 14, 2003

Emergency humanitarian aid is a priority in Iraq for the Foreign Ministry which has established the following plan of action :

• one million euros have already been made available on an emergency basis for the initial projects proposed by French NGOs and submitted to the foreign minister and secretary of state for foreign affairs on March 21 and 28 ;

• 10 million euros from the Ministry's budget will be redeployed for initial emergency humanitarian relief in Iraq ; special allocations have already been made to the ICRC, UNICEF and the UNHCR-three, two and one million euros respectively.

• on April 16 Foreign Secretary Renaud Muselier will go to Lanarca (Cyprus) for a working visit to UN humanitarian agencies working on the Iraq dossier. He will meet Romero da Silva, UN humanitarian programs coordinator in Iraq ;

• lastly, subject to consent of the Jordanian authorities, France will charter a special aircraft on April 17 to fly medicines and water treatment materials to Amman (Jordan). This will be taken by road to Baghdad by the French NGOs already operating in Iraq.

Q - Noëlle Lenoir said Monday she's not ruling out a deployment of EU forces in Iraq. Are you working on specific ideas ? Does any deployment necessarily have to go through the UN ? Have you raised the question with the Americans ?

I'd like to draw your attention to the minister's exact text and the context for her remarks : As Ms Lenoir said this morning in reply to a journalist, it's not a question that comes up at this time.