New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Monday that the capture of Saddam Hussein was the end of a chapter in Iraq's history and allowed the country to move ahead.

When she heard the news of his capture, Clark said her initial reaction was "to share the general relief of everybody."

"It's the end of a chapter in Iraq and I think it enables Iraq to move ahead," she said on National Radio.

Saddam was captured near his home town of Tikrit by United States troops Sunday.

Clark said capturing the former Iraqi leader was an important element in attempts to get Iraq "back to normal," although a " reaction" from the extremists who backed him could not be ruled out.

New Zealand would communicate to the United States its "relief and hope" that Saddam's capture would help Iraq move forward, she said.

"There have been accelerated plans for restoring Iraqi sovereignty and I'm fully in support of those."

New Zealand has 61 Defense Force engineers in Iraq helping with rebuilding work. The engineers have been based in the Basra region in southern Iraq.

Clark told the radio that Saddam should be put on trial and " there seems to be a fair amount of sympathy for him being tried in Iraq because it was against Iraq that his grossest crimes were committed."

New Zealand Defense Minister Mark Burton also told the radio that the big task of the rebuilding of Iraq remained.

However, he said Saddam's capture had to remove "one of the major threads of insecurity for many, many Iraqi people and I think we can all hope ... that this is a step in that long process of rebuilding a society and a positive future."