BAGHDAD - President Nicolas Sarkozy paid the first visit to Iraq by a French head of state Tuesday, smoothing over lingering resentment about France's opposition to the war and positioning his country to cash in on lucrative arms and oil deals.
The one-day visit, part of a Persian Gulf tour, took place as the Obama administration is preparing to draw down the 144,000-strong U.S. military force and signaled France's intention to play a diplomatic role in a region dominated by the United States.
"I want to underscore France's desire to participate in the economic development of Iraq, the rehabilitation of its infrastructures," Sarkozy told reporters after meeting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "Our collaboration has no limits."
The French leader, who met later with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, praised Iraq for dramatic improvements in security, including provincial elections held last month without major bloodshed.
With signs of stability emerging, Sarkozy said France "wants to turn toward the future" as Iraq moves away from "the painful pages that it has been living through these past years."
He urged French companies to invest in Iraq and called on his fellow Europeans to follow the French lead.
"We want to encourage all European countries to come," he said. "It is in Europe's interest to extend a hand here and to support the peace."
Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, spearheaded the international campaign against the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, angering both the United States and Iraqi exiles who later rose to power after Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime collapsed.
Many current Iraqi leaders, including al-Maliki, were unable to return to Iraq until the Americans and their allies toppled Saddam.
Nevertheless, Iraqi leaders appeared eager to forget the past and shore up their ties with a major European nation, easing their dependence on the United States.
Al-Maliki alluded to that Tuesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to comments made last week by Vice President Joe Biden, who told House Democrats that the new administration would be "much more aggressive in forcing" the Iraqis to resolve their political problems.
"The time for announcements is over," he snapped. "The Iraqi government knows its responsibilities."
Al-Maliki also said the French would build a new embassy in Baghdad and open consulates in two Iraqi cities -- Irbil in the north and Basra in the south.
"Soon a delegation of French companies will be visiting Iraq to discuss doing business in Iraq and not just in the areas of security and defense," al-Maliki told reporters, adding that Iraq's defense and oil ministers would visit France to discuss cooperation those fields.
France has been working to increase its influence in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East since Sarkozy took office in May 2007.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who accompanied Sarkozy on Tuesday's visit, had made two high-profile visits to Baghdad since 2007 and has assumed a major role in ensuring stability in Lebanon after the Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006.
Such moves have been a hallmark of French policy in the Middle East since France launched a major diplomatic effort after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, seeking to capitalize on Arab anger against the U.S. and Britain for supporting the Jewish state.
France developed extensive economic ties to Iraq in the early years of Saddam's regime, selling him millions of dollars worth of weapons during his eight-year war with Iran.
The French helped the Iraqis build an experimental nuclear station near Baghdad, which was crippled by an Israeli airstrike in 1981.
Relations soured when the French joined the U.S.-led coalition that drove Saddam's forces from Kuwait in 1991. Later, France campaigned strongly for the U.N. Security Council to ease international sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s.
Before departing for Oman, Sarkozy welcomed security gains in Iraq, but cautioned that the situation remained fragile -- a view shared by U.S. officials in Baghdad.
As a sign of the fragile security, a bomb attached to a car belonging to one of the guards of Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi exploded Tuesday less than half a mile away from the French Embassy, wounding the guard and two bystanders, according to police.
U.S. officials are carefully watching political reaction to the Jan. 31 provincial elections to see if the results are generally accepted by the Iraqi public.
Several parties have alleged fraud but so far there has been no violence as party leaders wait for the election commission to certify the results later this month.
A hard-line Iraqi Sunni Arab party that won nearly half the vote in the province that includes the northern city of Mosul offered cooperation talks with Kurds, their archrivals.
The Kurds, however, insisted on a key post in the provincial government and acknowledgment of their claims to disputed territory in the province -- the sticking point that is at the heart of the tensions.
"If they do not object to recognizing these things, then we are ready to hold a dialogue with them," said Khisro Koran, the head of the Kurdish bloc, which won about 25 per cent of the vote for the 37-seat council.
