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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iraq's foreign
minister said on Tuesday that Syria was a key
transit route for "foreign terrorists" as well as
remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and urged
Damascus to do more to stop them.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari was addressing the
U.N. Security Council to express support for the
continued presence in Iraq of the 160,000-strong
U.S.-led multinational force.
The U.N. mandate for the force is up for review and
Baghdad, which can request its withdrawal, wants it
to stay.
Zebari said he expected that what he called the
"campaign of destruction and intimidation" by
insurgents, which has intensified since the
formation of an Iraqi government on April 28, would
continue, especially during the drafting of a new
constitution in the coming months.
Zebari, a Kurd, acknowledged a statement by Syria's
U.N. envoy, Fayssal Mekdad, last week that Damascus
had stopped more than 1,200 people from entering
Iraq in the past few months.
"We welcome this action but note that it confirms
our long-held view that Syria has been one of the
main transit routes for foreign terrorists, as well
as for remnants of the previous regime," Zebari
said.
"Here we would like to urge our brothers in Syria to
do more to prevent the movement of extremist
elements from entering our country," he said.
Syrian officials said last week military and
intelligence cooperation between Damascus and the
United States had ended after a slew of American
accusations that Damascus was not doing enough.
On Tuesday, Mekdad told reporters, "We're doing our
best," adding that instability in Iraq meant
instability in Syria too.
Zebari said the United Nations should bolster its
assistance in helping Iraq draft a new constitution,
due by Aug. 15, which he called "the most critical
test for the future of our country."
"We are aware that the U.N. is moving to extend its
technical assistance and we urge that this process
is accelerated," Zebari told the council.
U.N. officials, however, said they sent seven
experts to Iraq in April but Baghdad's formal
request for their help on a constitution had just
arrived.
The constitution will serve as a foundation for the
new Iraq state and has to be approved by parliament
and in a referendum at the end of the year.
Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. ambassador, said
there was no "specific timeline" for the withdrawal
of multinational forces. But she said the foreign
troops would not stay any longer than necessary and
could not leave "until the Iraqis can meet the
serious security challenges they face."
Russia delayed a perfunctory Security Council
statement on the presence of the U.N. force Iraq for
"technical reasons," its U.N. ambassador, Andrei
Denisov, told reporters. He expected the problem to
be solved within a day.
Diplomats said Moscow objected to not being included
in a Cairo planning meeting on Thursday for a major
donor conference on Iraq in Brussels on June 22.
Reuters
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