Iraq's President Jalal Talabani looks on during meetings with Iraqi politicians in Baghdad's Green Zone, October 30, 2005. President Talabani met with several Iraqi politicians on Sunday, as part of preparations for the upcoming December 15 polls that will select the first full four-year parliament. - REUTERS
LONDON (AP):
BRITISH TROOPS could leave Iraq by the end of 2006, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has predicted.
In a television interview to be broadcast in Britain yesterday, Talabani said no Iraqis wanted foreign troops to remain indefinitely in their country. He added that homegrown troops should be ready to take over from British forces in the southern provinces around Basra by the end of next year.
But he warned that an immediate withdrawal of United States-led forces would be a catastrophe for Iraq and would lead to civil war, with harmful consequences for the whole Middle East.
"We don't want British forces forever in Iraq. Within one year - I think at the end of 2006, Iraqi troops will be ready to replace British forces in the south," Talabani said in the interview with Jonathan Dimbleby for Independent Television. The station released details from the interview before it aired.
Britain's top soldier, General Sir Mike Jackson, said yesterday that the timetable was "well within the range of what is realistically possible."
"The president has said that we could leave within year or so. I would agree - we most certainly could. But it's a question of achieving the right conditions," Jackson told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s 'Sunday A.M.' programme.
Pressed on whether the assessment amounted to a commitment, Talabani replied: "Well, I haven't been in negotiations, but in my opinion and according to my study of the situation, I can say that it is the just estimation of the situation ... There is not one Iraqi that wants that forever the troops remain in the country."
He said, however, that immediate withdrawal "would lead to a kind of civil war and ... we will lose what we have done for liberating Iraq from worst kind of dictatorship."
Talabani called for a gradual pullout, with close coordination between coalition nations and the Iraqi authorities.
He acknowledged that an upsurge of violence could be expected in the run-up to National Assembly elections, scheduled for December 15, but denied that insurgents would be able to influence the result of the ballot.
