Iraqi vice president favours US pullout timetable

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19 (Reuters) Iraq's vice president today said he favoured a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from his country but they could not leave until Iraqi forces are able to handle the situation on their own.

''I am calling for a scheduled withdrawal of American troops,'' Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi told reporters after talks with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

But the top priority for Iraq is not a US pullout but ensuring stability and security and ending the violence that has been tearing up the country, he added, speaking in Arabic.

''We work closely with the Americans who want their soldiers home. But withdrawal cannot come before the Iraqi forces are capable of handling the situation on their own,'' he said.

Hashemi also said Baghdad wanted the United Nations to play a greater role in Iraqi construction, a role the world body has approached gingerly since its Baghdad headquarters was blown up in an August 19, 2003, truck bombing that killed 22 people including UN mission chief Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Among the areas where more UN aid would be helpful were bringing together the country's warring Shi'ite and Sunni factions and retraining security forces, said Hashemi, a Sunni.

While he understood that the American people wanted their troops to come home, US President George W Bush had made a commitment to the Iraqi people and had also dismantled the Iraqi army after the US-led March 2003 invasion, he said.

Hashemi was in New York to bid farewell to Annan and discuss Iraq after visiting Washington last week.

''The United States administration clearly has to plan for an organised ... timetable for withdrawal,'' Hashemi said in a speech to a Washington think tank. ''A timetable can only be linked to serious efforts to reform the Iraqi military and security forces.'' The Iraq Study Group, a panel of former senior US officials, recommended this month that Bush withdraw most US forces from combat in Iraq by early 2008 and focus instead on training Iraqi forces.

Their report increased pressure on Bush to find a way out of a war that has killed more than 2,900 US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

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