Iraq seeks way out of British troop pact impasse

THE Iraqi government and lawmakers struggled to find a way to allow non-US foreign forces remain in Iraq next year, after parliament rejected a law that would have sanctioned their presence yesterday.

The law setting an end-July withdrawal date for British, Australian, Romanian, Estonian, Salvadoran and Nato soldiers was rejected because parliament said foreign relations could not technically be governed by simple legislation.

Iraq needed an agreement or a treaty for that, the lawmakers said, demanding the government negotiate something similar in format to the US-Iraq security pact that allows 140,000 or so US troops in Iraq to stay for three more years.