With stability slowly returning to Iraq after near civil war, a more confident Baghdad on Tuesday proposed forming an EU-style trading and security bloc with its neighbors.
Unveiling the plan at a conference in Washington, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq was now ready to play a more assertive regional role.
“It is a time now for Iraq as well as its partners to think of a new era on the role of Iraq in the region after five hard years,” Dabbagh said in an address to the US Institute of Peace, greeted skeptically by the audience.
Its publication signaled that Iraq wants to put itself on a more equal footing with its neighbors, who until recently viewed it as almost a failed state.
Dabbagh said the Iraq neighbors’ group that was set up to help stabilize the country after the US-led invasion in 2003 was no longer useful. Neighboring states had shown “dwindling interest” in the project, which focused on improving security cooperation to help reduce violence in Iraq.
He proposed creating a “Regional Economic Partnership” with Iraq at the heart of a trading, security and energy bloc that would include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and later perhaps Gulf states.
Dabbagh said informal discussions had been held with Kuwait, Syria and Turkey but did not report their reactions.
“The new Iraq could convert the region into the EU model. Iraq is going to play a major stabilizing factor,” he said.
He said barriers to trade and the free movement of goods and people would be lifted; water resources and electricity shared; security integrated; and agreements on shared oil fields and joint infrastructure projects reached.
Audience members repeatedly asked whether the initiative was realistic given that Iraq is still viewed by many as a source of regional instability.
Meanwhile, the British government is preparing to withdraw its troops from Iraq by next June, newspapers reported yesterday.
Citing a senior defense source, the Guardian said the pullout would start in March and that the last troops would leave Basra by June. Other newspapers also reported defense sources as giving a June date.
About 300 to 400 troops could remain to help train Iraqi forces, while equipment such as helicopters would be transferred to Afghanistan.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ruled out a timetable for a withdrawal but has indicated he wanted to reduce the number of troops in Iraq. Ministers have spoken of a “fundamental change of mission” next year and this was reiterated by a Ministry of Defense spokeswoman yesterday.
“Significant progress has been made in Basra ... As such, we are now expecting to see a fundamental change of mission in early 2009,” she said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home