With a year-end deadline for the pullout of US troops looming, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Tuesday said he believes there will be an agreement with the US to train his country’s military and talks are already under way in Baghdad.
“We’re looking for October for these talks to move forward,” Zebari said in an interview.
The administration of US President Barack Obama is considering 3,000 to 5,000 troops for an Iraqi training mission, according to Washington officials familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
One Iraqi lawmaker close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Baghdad may ask only for about 2,500 forces.
“I think we will get an agreement on training,” Zebari said, but he would not discuss numbers and stressed that training could take place both outside and inside Iraq.
“How many trainers will remain in Iraq is not that important,” he said. “It’s the commitment that is very important.”
Regardless, Zebari said, there will be no new status of forces or security agreement with the US.
“The political conditions in Iraq have changed. That’s why it’s difficult,” he said.
Any move that leaves US forces in the country past the end of the year has been vigorously opposed by anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia was responsible for much of the violence in the country when it was consumed in a near civil war in 2005 and 2006. Al-Sadr has threatened a resumption of violence if the US troops remain into next year.
“We reject even the staying of trainers,” Sadrist lawmaker Mushraq Naji said last week. “Our stance is clear and that all US troops should leave. Negotiations to keep them here run against the will of the Iraqi people.”
Zebari said the government has support from most political leaders for the talks with the Americans on training mission arrangements because the country doesn’t have the military expertise to protect its shores and oil terminals, control its airspace and air defenses, “and even the land forces need” training.
However, he said the government must line up support in parliament for the training mission.
Zebari was interviewed hours after officials in Baghdad announced that Iraq had signed an estimated US$3 billion deal to buy 18 fighter jets from the US. The F-16s aren’t expected to arrive in Iraq until next fall at the earliest, and more likely not until 2013, which means US forces could still be asked to patrol the country’s skies.
Zebari said the importance of the deal is “for the world to know that Iraq is an ally of the United States in the region.”
Asked about protecting Iraq’s airspace before the planes arrive and Iraqi pilots are trained, Zebari said the no-fly zone in northern Iraq in 1991 and 1992 was controlled by just six US officers.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS