EU split over US draft resolution on Iraq

THE European Union was split yesterday over Washington’s draft UN resolution seeking wider international support in Iraq, with Britain welcoming it and France pressing for a clutch of amendments.

There was no clash on Iraq as the bloc’s foreign ministers met on the picture-postcard banks of Italy’s Lake Garda, but the issue has once again intruded on the agenda of a key EU meeting.

The ministers got down to planning a season of negotiations on the EU’s first constitution and work on a security strategy designed to make the bloc a more effective global actor and avoid future crises such as its damaging rift over the Iraq war.