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US denies permanent Iraqi bases
12/03/2006 08:12 - (SA)
Baghdad - US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said on Saturday that his country did not want permanent military bases in Iraq and that he was willing to talk to Iran about the war-torn country's future.
"We want Iraq to stand on its own feet, we have no goal of establishing permanent bases here," he said in an interview with Iraq's Ash-Sharqiya television, according to a transcript obtained by AFP.
"Our goal is a working, a workable government, so that we can leave Iraq and let Iraqis handle all their circumstance themselves. That's our goal, and were very serious about this, we mean it," he said.
The ambassador said he was willing to speak with Iran about Iraq's future, stressing however that the US would not let its concerns over Iran's alleged nuclear weapons' drive influence its policies in Iraq.
"I have offered to the Iranians that we are willing to talk with them about our differences with regard to Iraq," he said.
"Iran says that the United States wants to promote sectarianism here," he said. "I have talked to you about nothing but unity and the effort by others who are enemies of Iraq to promote sectarianism and division."
US officials have maintained that Iran is undermining Iraqi reconstruction, influencing its politics and even actively supporting the insurgency there.
While Khalilzad admitted differences between Washington and Tehran, he vowed they would not affect Iraq policy -- provided Iran behaved likewise.
"The United States has many differences with Iran and Iran has differences with the United States," he said.
"We have not tried to import our differences with Iran here in Iraq and to impose our differences on Iraq-Iran relations ... and we don't want Iran to export into Iraq its differences with us, we will react very negatively to that."
Khalilzad also admitted that Washington had made mistakes since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, but did not elaborate on what they were.
"We certainly have made some mistakes ourselves ... We did make mistakes. But we have learned from mistakes and tried to adjust, that's our style, to sort of keep on going, adjust as the circumstances warrant."
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