EU Plans Meeting on Iraq

LUXEMBOURG — The European Union said Saturday that it would hold an international conference on rebuilding Iraq in the next two months, picking up an idea EU leaders discussed with President Bush at a summit in February.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the conference would take place in Brussels in late May or early June.

“We are currently in the process of organizing this conference,” he said but added that it would be held only “at the request of the Iraqi authorities.”

Asselborn said that EU foreign ministers would hold further discussions on the plan at their next meeting, scheduled for April 25, but that the EU was already coordinating the event with the United States and other countries.

Asselborn said the proposed gathering on Iraq would not be a pledging conference but one aimed at promoting and backing democratic reforms in the struggling country.