Iraq's leaders, flexing muscles as the US prepares to cede sovereignty, are sending a delegation to the UN to demand control of their oil wealth and an end to reparations it pays for former president Saddam Hussein's wars.
Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Bayati said yesterday that the embryonic government in Baghdad would demand a say this week in a new UN resolution on the country's affairs.
Following Monday's car bomb assassination outside the US headquarters of the head of their Governing Council, Iraqis who will be running the country after the handover of power on June 30 are increasingly dismayed not only at the US failure to provide security but also at limits on their new sovereignty.
"Iraq must have a say in the next UN resolution," Bayati said. "We will negotiate on the basis that Iraq must be fully in charge of its resource wealth, and the 5 percent of oil revenues we pay [in war reparations] must be reduced further."
Planning Minister Mehdi al-Hafedh, a candidate for prime minister, said the next government will review the debt and reparations because Iraq had no say in calculating them and Iraqi officials had not seen documents proving the claims.
"Legitimate demands have to be respected, but it is unjust for Iraq to pay for the crimes of Saddam with its future," Hafedh said. "The international community must be mindful of the immense problems we are facing."
Washington's authority in Iraq, 14 months after an invasion that many Iraqis welcomed as a relief from Saddam, has been undermined by insecurity, poverty and a burgeoning scandal over the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers.
There were fresh clashes in the south of the country between US troops and militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
In the holy city of Kerbala, they fought running battles around dawn that killed at least eight Iraqis and wounded 13.
Some of the fiercest fighting took place only 100m from the city shrines, as guerrillas launched rocket-propelled grenades at US tanks moving into the area.
Also See Stories:
Bremer says handover will go ahead
Britain to dispatch up to 3,000 more troops
US forces destroy shell containing chemical agent
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS