US, Britain: Iraq must decide
2004-06-05 08:10
United Nations - The United States and Britain have offered Iraq's interim government the right to send home US-led troops under a new UN resolution they want to get approved in the coming days.
The two war allies fine-tuned several proposals in their draft on Friday to ease some concerns of fellow Security Council members, as well as Iraq, ahead of high-level talks this weekend on the June 30 transfer of power in Baghdad.
The new resolution will endorse the handover to the interim government unveiled in Baghdad on Tuesday.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told PBS television that the revision of the draft "was a good sign, actually, that our views are taken into consideration."
In the previous version, only the next Iraqi government due to be elected by the end of January would have had the authority to ask the forces to leave.
But the apparent concession seemed to bear little real import after Zebari said on Thursday that US-led troops would have to remain for "some time" to prevent a slide into chaos and civil war.
Friday's revised draft also nodded to other questions raised by council opponents, including Russian pressure over the UN inspectors who monitored Iraqi weapons programmes under Saddam Hussein.
The new text says that the council would in future consider the mandate of the inspectors, who have not returned to Iraq since the war that drove Saddam from power last year.
Calls for text changes
On Thursday, Zebari seemed to short-circuit much of the council opposition to the earlier draft, saying it was "quite adequate" on the question of Iraqi sovereignty after the end of the US occupation.
China, France, Germany and Russia had all called for various changes to the text, including strengthened language making clear that Iraq would have full sovereignty after the occupation formally ends June 30.
British ambassador Emyr Jones Parry called Zebari's remarks a "ringing endorsement" and said he expected a vote soon, although no date has yet been set.
A key blank in the text that remains to be filled, however, is the exact relationship between the US-led troops and the interim leadership, which is due to be spelt out in a separate exchange of letters between the two.
Diplomats said they expected those letters to be drawn up by early next week.
Zebari said that Iraqi views had to be taken into consideration on US-led military operations that could have serious political consequences but stopped short of asking for an outright veto.
- AFP