French President Jacques Chirac, in an open letter published here Monday, urged the United States to avoid unilateralism and called for a new partnership between Washington and the European Union to find solutions to common challenges.
"Today as in the aftermath of World War II, the world needs an America that exercises the global responsibilities incumbent upon it," he wrote in the letter, published in the Washington Post.
"It needs an America that is not tempted to turn its back on the world or be seduced by unilateralism and that plays its full role in the main international organizations, from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization," added the French president, who is due to meet with President Bill Clinton later Monday ahead of a US-European Union summit here.
France currently holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation EU.
Chirac also called for a new partnership between the United States and the EU, with each partner assuming its responsibilities.
"Taking as our base an alliance that is 50 years old, the time has come to build a new partnership between the United States and an EU both reformed in Nice and thereby soon to be enlarged," he noted. "Only by acting together can Europeans and Americans find solutions to the many common challenges they face."
Such joint action should focus on moves to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, threats to the environment, drug trafficking, money laundering, organized crime cartels as well as terrorism, the French president said.
He added that the "groundwork for cooperation between the EU and NATO" had been laid during the French presidency of the EU.
Pointing to the major decisions made by the European summit at the Nice summit southern France a week ago to better assume its defense and security responsibilities, Chirac singled out EU plans for a rapid-reaction force of up to 60,000 troops with air and naval support by 2003.
He also pointed to the responsibility of both the United States and Europe to "promote a more humane side to globalization," including greater effort to assist the poorest countries, especially in Africa, where "France and its European partners are spearheading these efforts by reducing the debt burden."
"Similarly we must tackle together the AIDS pandemic and the critical problem of access to care in poor countries," Chirac said.
"The EU and the United States already are principal partners in trade and investment. Trade disputes, which account for only about one percent of the trade volume between the EU and the United States, must not cloud their fast-growing economic relations."
And the French leader concluded, "Everything favors a renewed transatlantic partnership anchored in shared values and destiny as one of the cornerstones of world stability -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
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