LONDON, March 10 (Xinhuanet) -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called on Europe on Thursday to "work closely with the United States" to promote democracy in the Middle East.

    "It is clear that something very important is going on (in the Middle East)," Straw said in a speech to the left-wing Fabian Society in London.

    "This is a process which is greatly in the interests of the Middle East, of Britain and of the whole international community,"he said.

    "But more important than the question of what is behind this wave of change, is that of how best we can support it," Straw said,stressing that reform is urgently needed if the Middle East is to meet the enormous challenges it faces.

    "Political reform in the Middle East is the best long-term recipe available for allowing the people of an enormously important region to realize their potential and for defeating the threats to their and our security," said Straw, vowing to help theMiddle East with a "good deal of humility."

    Amid criticism that the Iraq war has failed to support "a vision of how to change the world for the better," Straw argued that the war instigated important steps towards democratic reform in the Middle East region.

    "It will be for historians to judge, at greater distance and detachment than I can offer, just how much the end of the Saddam regime in Iraq, and the free elections there in January, have contributed to what is now happening," Straw said. "I do not buy the claim that all this has nothing to do with Iraq."

    Straw's remarks were seen by some British media as a tentative attempt at testing the political waters on the issue of Iraq whichremains a major problem for the ruling Labor Party in the upcominggeneral election expected in May.

    The British government remains nervous about the Iraq issue andhas sought to stamp on recent press queries over the legality of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's case for joining the US-led war, the Times newspaper reported on Thursday. Enditem