France calls for changes in UNSCOM

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine on Monday said that the international community needs to put in place a system of continuous control over Iraqi weapons.

In an interview granted to RFI radio the French Foreign Minister added that a weapons-control program should be carried out by a modified version of UNSCOM.

"It should be possible to bring an end to the inspections geared to the past and now find a detection mechanism enabling us to be sure that Iraq doesn't once more become a threat in the future, a method of controlling its arms and the use of the financial income, so that the money isn't misappropriated and used to rearm," Vedrine said, adding that implementation of such a mechanism would allow for sanctions against Iraq to be reconsidered.

He said that the US-British air strikes had created a new situation, but there were not significant differences between France and its international partners on ways to deal with Iraq.