France and the United States have agreed to work together on new anti-terrorism techniques, heralding a thaw in the frosty relations that developed during the Iraq crisis. A Franco-US working group will develop biometric techniques such as fingerprints and iris scanning – seen as a vital tool in the fight against criminal and terrorist gangs. The announcement came during a meeting of Group of Eight justice and interior ministers in Paris which is being attended by US Attorney General John Ashcroft, the most senior US official to visit France since the acrimony over Iraq erupted. France vehemently opposed the US-led war against Iraq, which Washington pursued without the backing of the United Nations Security Council. Full Story