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Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari warns against
quick US pullout
18.3.2008
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March 18, 2008
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's foreign minister said
Tuesday that he believes his country has averted a
civil war after five years of "tears and blood," and
warned that an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal would be
disastrous.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told The AP that
mistakes had been made by all sides but Iraq has
reached a turning point.
"These past five years I think were full of hopes
and promises but also of tears and blood ... and
we've gone through a very, very difficult
transformation," said Zebari, a Kurd who has held
his post in each successive Iraqi administration
since the U.S.-led invasion on March 20, 2003. |
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari |
He noted that the Iraqis
had established a government and gained freedoms
that were absent under nearly three decades of
Saddam Hussein's rule, despite violence that has
killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,000
U.S. troops.
"At the same time divisions have deepened,
unfortunately," he said during an interview in an
ornate reception room outside his office at the
Foreign Ministry building in central Baghdad. "But
... I think we averted a sectarian war. We passed
the possibility of a civil war."
Zebari said it was premature to set a timeframe for
the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, noting that
negotiations on a long-term security agreement with
the United States to replace a U.N. mandate had just
begun.
He expressed concern about growing weariness by the
American public with the war, and promises by rival
Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Barack Obama to begin withdrawing forces
quickly if elected.
Zebari said changes could be made but warned that
the consequences of a premature withdrawal would be
"disastrous." All the security gains from a U.S.
troop buildup "would evaporate," he said
His comments came a day after presumptive Republican
presidential candidate John McCain and Vice
President Dick Cheney stressed the need for a
sustained U.S. commitment in Iraq during parallel
visits to Baghdad.
"We are in an election season and many candidates
will say things that appeal to the public, but when
the real national interests of the United States, of
the nation confront them I think they have to make
hard decisions," Zebari said of the candidates.
"I think now American interests in this part of the
world are as important as they were in Germany
during the World War so it will not be easy for any
administration,www.ekurd.net
Republican or Democrat,
just to wash off their hands and walk away," he
said. "There is a certain responsibility, an
international and moral responsibility, to help the
people of Iraq to reach a stable form of
governance."
AP
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