Region | Iraq
Iraqi cabinet seeks changes to draft US deal
Iraq's cabinet decided on Tuesday to seek changes to a draft pact agreed with Washington to allow US forces to stay in Iraq until 2011, government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said.
- By Basil Adas, Correspondent
- Published: 23:45 October 21, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- Baghdad had previously described the draft as a final text. It was agreed last week after months of painstaking negotiations.
Baghdad: Iraq's cabinet decided on Tuesday to seek changes to a draft pact agreed with Washington to allow US forces to stay in Iraq until 2011, government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said.
"The cabinet has agreed that necessary amendments to the pact could make it nationally accepted," Dabbagh told Reuters.
"The cabinet will continue its meetings [in coming days], in which ministers will give their opinions and consult and provide the amendments suggested. Then this will be given to the American negotiating team," he added.
The announcement was an apparent reversal for Baghdad, which had previously described the draft as a final text. It was agreed last week after months of painstaking negotiations.
Political leaders from most parties withheld their support for the text at a meeting on Sunday, raising doubts that it could pass through parliament without changes.
Troops not immune
The draft would require US troops to leave Iraq after 2011 unless Baghdad asks them to stay, and also lets Iraqi courts try American service members accused of serious crimes while off duty. But some Iraqi politicians have expressed concern over details such as the mechanism for holding trials.
Gulf News learned of reports of verbal altercations occurring between some leaders of the Shiite coalition led by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who belongs to Barzani's party, over Zebari's announcement yesterday that approval is unlikely to be reached before the US elections take place.
Still, President of the Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, has been pressing hard to gather support for the final US-Iraqi security draft this year, officials told Gulf News. "Security gains can be lost, federalism could collapse, and Iraq can slip into an intensified civil war," Falah Mustafa, a foreign relations official of the Kurdistan regional government warned.
A report issued by the Kurdistan Democratic Party says Iran will score a major victory if the final draft is not approved.
"The Iranians are doing their best to prevent the signing of the agreement because the do not want to give President Bush a victory at the end of his presidency," the report stated.
- With inputs from Reuters
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