World youth leaders meeting in Melaka have urged the United Nations to give a prominent role to young people in re-building Iraq.

The Roundtable of World Youth Leaders adopted a declaration today urging the UN to support and facilitate the involvement of young people and youth organisations in the reconstruction of Iraq.

According to a Bernama report, the youth leaders said they recognised the urgent desire of young people from all parts of the world to help alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people and to assist in the reconstruction following the United States-led invasion of Iraq, which destroyed many of Iraq's infrastructure.

"Having tried through massive peaceful demonstrations to prevent a war, but having been unable to prevent the suffering and deaths of Iraqis and the destruction of its buildings and utilities, large numbers of young people now wish to go to Iraq to serve its people," the leaders from some 20 international and regional organisations said at the end of their meeting today.

Take action

"The Roundtable calls upon the UN and the coalition governments to take effective action o­n this resolution by the time of the UN General Assembly in September 2003."

They also called for transparent and accountable arrangements of resources of Iraq, which should be managed and administered by the UN.

"Recalling the historic effective involvement of young people in post-war reconstruction efforts, we believe that the involvement of the international youth NGO commmunity would be an effective contribution to the development of Iraq," they said.

The five-day meeting, themed "Towards a Global Community", was organised by the World Assembly of Youth.