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US Vice President Joe Biden to hold talks
with Iraqi leaders
3.7.2009
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July
3, 2009
BAGHDAD, Iraq,— US Vice President
Joe Biden
was to hold talks with Iraqi leaders on Friday
focused on bridging the country's sectarian divide
ahead of a complete American military pull-out in
2011.
Biden was first scheduled to meet General Ray
Odierno, the top US officer in Iraq, as well as
Christopher Hill, Washington's ambassador to
Baghdad.
The trip comes just after President Barack Obama
asked the vice president to oversee the US departure
from Iraq and Washington's effort to promote
political reconciliation in the country.
The White House said Biden, who landed late on
Thursday, would also visit American troops now
stationed on the outskirts of Iraqi cities,
following a major pullback from urban centres that
was completed on Tuesday.
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U.S. Vice President Joe Biden |
It also said talks with political leaders, including
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, will renew the US
commitment to complete the terms of the bilateral
accord signed last November that set a timeline for
the US military exit.
It is Biden's first trip to Iraq since he was sworn
in as vice president in January, but he previously
made several trips when he was chairman of the
Senate foreign relations committee.
The White House said Biden would work closely with
Odierno and Hill, as US forces prepare to leave the
country for good.
"The vice president has been asked by the president
to oversee the policy," White House spokesman Robert
Gibbs said on the day of the US troop pullback.
Biden would work with Iraqis "toward overcoming
their political differences and achieving the type
of reconciliation that we all understand has yet to
fully take place but needs to take place," he said.
But Gibbs said an idea once put forward by Biden --
dividing Iraq's Shiite,www.ekurd.net
Sunni and Kurdish communities into a federation of
autonomous zones -- was not on the table for the
Obama administration.
The vice president's arrival in Baghdad was welcomed
by Wathad Shaqir, chief of the Iraqi parliament's
national reconciliation committee.
"I believe he has brought some suggestions regarding
the reconciliation project," Shaqir told state
television, noting he was happy that Biden's
divisional zoning idea had been abandoned.
"We are looking forward to a new page," he added.
A key problem facing the reconciliation effort is a
Sunni demand that Baathists loyal to now executed
dictator Saddam Hussein, who were excluded from
politics after the 2003 US-led liberation, be
reintegrated.
Major difficulties are also posed by the crucial
oil-hub city and province of Kirkuk, which Iraq's
autonomous Kurdish region has laid claim to in a new
draft constitution that has irked the federal
government in Baghdad.
The Kurds have long striven to expand their northern
territory beyond its current three provinces to
other areas where the population was historically
Kurdish.
Kurdistan,www.ekurd.net
whose capital is Erbil in northern Iraq, has its own
flag which is raised beside the federal flag, and
also has its own slogan, national anthem and
national day.
Iraq marked Tuesday's American pullback with a
national holiday. The country's 500,000 police and
250,000 soldiers are now in charge in cities, towns
and villages. Most of the 133,000 US troops
remaining in the country will be based outside towns
and cities.
The Americans will largely play a training and
support role.
Under the Status of Forces Agreement signed in
November, US commanders must now seek Iraqi
permission to conduct operations, but their troops
retain a unilateral right to "legitimate
self-defence."
Copyright, respective
author or news agency,
AFP
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