Iraqi PM demands withdrawal timetable

Iraq’s prime minister Nouri Maliki said today no security agreement with the US could be reached unless it included a “specific deadline” for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Last week, US and Iraqi officials said the two sides had agreed tentatively to a schedule which included a broad pullout of combat forces by the end of 2011 with a residual US force remaining behind to continue training and advising the Iraqi security forces.

But Mr Maliki’s remarks today suggested that the Iraqi government is still not satisfied with that arrangement.

“There can be no treaty or agreement except on the basis of Iraq’s full sovereignty,” Mr Maliki told a gathering of tribal sheikhs.

He said such an agreement must be based on the principle that “no foreign soldier remains in Iraq after a specific deadline, not an open time frame”.

US president George Bush has long resisted a timetable for pulling out troops from Iraq, even under heavy pressure from a nation distressed by American deaths and discouraged by the length of the war that began in 2003.

But that has somewhat softened recently, with the Bush administration now speaking about “time horizons”. But even “time horizons” now appears unacceptable to Mr Maliki’s government.

“We find this to be too vague,” a close Maliki aide said. “We don’t want the phrase ’time horizons’. We are not comfortable with that phrase,” said the aide.

Another top Maliki aide said the Iraqi government has “stopped talking about the withdrawal of combat troops. We just talk about withdrawals”, including trainers and logistics troops.

In his address, Mr Maliki also suggested that the question of granting immunity to US military personnel or contractors continued to be a sticking point in the negotiations.

In one key part of the draft agreement, private US contractors would be subject to Iraqi law but the Americans are holding firm that US troops would remain subject exclusively to US legal jurisdiction.

Mr Maliki said that his country could not grant “open immunity” to Iraqis or foreigners because that would be tantamount to a violating the “sanctity of Iraqi blood”. He did not elaborate.

Another Maliki aide said Iraq remained adamant that the last American soldier must leave Iraq by the end of 2011 – regardless of conditions at the time.

The agreement had been scheduled to be concluded by the end of last month.

No new date has been set, but the two Maliki aides said a final draft was now available to the political leaderships in Baghdad and Washington. One of the two said a breakthrough was not expected before next month.