(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-08-20 10:35

A White House spokesman welcomed Kouchner's visit.

"This is one more example ... of a growing international desire to help Iraq become a stable and secure country," spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Kouchner's appointment after Sarkozy's election in May was seen as significant for relations with the United States and with Iraq where France has no troops but has kept an embassy.

He has been a leading advocate of "humanitarian intervention" -- the right to get involved in another country's affairs if human rights are being abused.

Kouchner, co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, is one of the few French politicians who backed military intervention in Iraq, saying he was against war but also against Saddam Hussein's regime.

His visit coincided with the fourth anniversary of a truck bomb attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that killed UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, a friend of Kouchner whom he met while working in Kosovo.

Kouchner visited the site of the attack and laid a wreath in remembrance of those who were killed.

The president of neighbouring Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has accepted an invitation to visit Iraq, Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday, a move unlikely to be welcomed by Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki said Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki had invited Ahmadinejad after visiting Tehran this month, but said a final decision had yet to be taken.

"When a definite decision about the trip is made, the timing will be announced to the public," Mottaki told reporters in the northeastern city of Mashhad, according to the ISNA news agency.

US officials and military commanders have stepped up their accusations against Iran in recent weeks, accusing Iraq's neighbour of playing a spoiling role to influence a progress report on the war due to be presented to Congress next month.

US intelligence reports indicate there are about 50 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards training Shiite militias in how to use mortars and rockets in southern Iraq, a US general said on Sunday.

In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini dismissed the accusation as "completely baseless".

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