Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki raised the possibility that his country won't sign a status of forces agreement with the United States and will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.
Maliki made the comment after weeks of complaints from Shiite Muslim lawmakers that U.S. proposals that would govern a continued troop presence in Iraq would infringe on Iraq's sovereignty.
"Iraq has another option that it may use," Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."
Earlier, Maliki acknowledged that talks with the U.S. on a status of forces agreement "reached an impasse" after the American negotiators presented a draft that would have given the U.S. access to 58 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for both U.S. soldiers and private contractors.
The Iraqis rejected those demands, and U.S. diplomats have submitted a second draft, which Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told McClatchy included several major concessions. Among those would be allowing Iraq to prosecute private contractors for violations of Iraqi law and requiring U.S. forces to turn over to Iraqi authorities Iraqis that the Americans detain.
Salih stressed that the Iraqi government wants to reach an agreement with the United States. But he said the Iraqi government wouldn't be pressured into accepting terms that compromised Iraq's rights as a sovereign state.
"Our American allies need to understand and realize that this agreement must be respectful of Iraqi sovereignty," Salih said. "We need them here for a while longer, and they know they have to remain here for a while."
American negotiators have hoped the talks would be finished by the end of July, but Maliki's latest remarks — as well as those by influential members of parliament — make that deadline seem unrealistic.
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