Hungarian writer Imre Kertesz, the winner of the 2002 Nobel Literature Prize, called on the European Union to mend ties with the United States over a potential war on Iraq, in an interview with the Nepszabadsag daily newspaper on Friday.

"It is very painful for me that the ties between Europe and America have suffered such a terrible wound. This is not normal," Kertesz, who currently lives in Berlin, told the mass-circulation newspaper.

European countries "completely forget that without America, they could not have gotten rid of the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin.

"It is possible that without America, France would now be a socialist state, a people's republic," he added.

"They also ignore that a balance of forces during the Cold War made possible western Europe's undisturbed economic development."

"I am not saying that now we should fall on our knees before America in gratitude for all this, but I maintain that no European politics can exist without America," he said.

"A common political conflict must not cause such a deep rift between two cultures that are basically being fed by each other," said Kertesz, a 72-year-old Holocaust survivor.

» Mend ties with US over Iraq, Kertesz tells EU : HindustanTimes.com