Brussels, 18/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - Monday's General Affairs Council adopted conclusions whereby ministers again condemn the deadly attacks on London as an “affront to everything the EU stands for”. It is important for the EU and its Member States to have the means necessary to face up to terrorist threat, but also for them to help third countries to combat the sources of terrorism, they stressed. In this respect, the Council agreed that the fight against terrorism is now a “key part” of all political dialogue that the EU has established with third countries. Ministers recalled the conclusions adopted last week at the extraordinary JHA Council.
Arriving in Brussels on Friday morning, Jack Straw, British Foreign Minister and President-in-Office of the Council (and who, before his peers, expressed the British government's gratitude for the solidarity and practical aid provided by all Member States in the wake of the London attacks), firmly rejected Monday's hypothesis of a link between the war in Iraq and the attacks in London. Jack Straw told reporters that one can no longer find excuses for terrorists who have hit everywhere in the world, in allied countries, in the United States, in the war in Iraq and in countries that had nothing to do with the war in Iraq. They have struck in Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia, Yemen and they struck this weekend in Turkey, which did not support British action in Iraq, Straw said, in reaction to a report published on Monday by the Royal Institute for International Relations (Chatham House, RIIA), which considers that the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 placed Great Britain in a particularly risky situation, mainly because it was the closest ally of the United States. In London, Defence Minister John Reid also challenged this analysis.