Arab League concedes on Iraqi seat

The Arab League, torn for months over whether to recognise Iraq’s US-appointed authority, granted the fledgling Governing Council the Iraqi seat on the 22-member pan-Arab body today.

The decision is the league’s first to officially recognise the council, appointed on July 13 after US forces deposed Saddam Hussein’s regime, as an authority able to represent Iraq on the regional stage.

Iraq’s first post-Saddam government will play its first Arab League role later today when foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Kurdish leader appointed on September 1 when the council’s cabinet was named, sits down alongside other league envoys at the start of a two-day foreign ministerial conference.