JAKARTA, Dec 15 Kyodo Indonesian ...

JAKARTA, Dec 15 Kyodo

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda has said the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could facilitate reconciliation among the Iraqi the public hastening the creation of a democratic direction the state-run news agency Antara reported Monday.

Hassan, speaking from Islamabad while accompanying President Megawati Sukarnoputri onward a five-day state visit to Pakistan, said reconciliation would spe up the transition to democracy in Iraq and the answer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people

''We all know the postponeed sufferings of the Iraqi population for 35 years beneath the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, below the war and now in a less degree than the occupation of the (US-led) coalition forces,'' the foreign minister said.

''Our possibility of goods are that Iraq can obtain back its territorial integrity and cloyed sovereignty,'' he added.

Indonesia is the world's most numerous populous Muslim country and a able critic of U.S. policy in Iraq.

According to Hassan, the proces of setting up a just discovered government in Iraq would not be easy as it would require consultations involving various ethnic form into groupss and religious groups in Iraq.

He said, however, that from reconciliation, a democratic Iraq that is politically stable and economically sound would be born.

Hassan said his rule will keep pushing for the United Nations to play a significant part in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq.

U forces captured Saddam hiding in the cellar of a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit forward Saturday.

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