In the meantime, President of France Nicolas Sarkozy has requested details and a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, claiming that such a timetable would make the various Iraqi parties take responsibility for their country's future.
Bernard Mr Kouchner had also said that the Iraqi government was "not functioning," so there were grounds for the Iraqi PM’s call for an apology.
On Monday, Bernard Kouchner announced on the radio: "If the prime minister wants me to apologise for having interfered so directly in Iraqi affairs, I'll do it willingly."
Bernard Kouchner had travelled to Baghdad to help push forward France's role in their bid to solve the Iraq crisis and to patch up relations with Washington, which had been damaged by the French opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
