By KUNA,
Baghdad : Iraqi forces will be self-sufficient in the near future, said Iraqi national security adviser Muwafaq Al-Rubaie on Wednesday.
Al-Rubaie, who was representing the Primer Nouri Al-Maliki at the handover ceremony of the security dossier to the local forces, told reporters that he foresaw the day when Iraq would be free of foreign presence.
He expressed gratitude to every soldier who contributed to liberating Iraq from the former dictatorship, and for remaining to train the Iraqi forces as well as their ongoing support for restoring law and order to the country.
He said that the security responsibility for all Iraqi provinces would handed over before the end of 2008, noting that ten provinces so far had been handed over.
Al-Rubaie believed that the presence of the coalition forces would not be necessarily as there was no longer a fear of civil war, adding that everyone was looking forward to reconstruction.
Iraq authorities are currently conducting crucial negotiations with the US forces as Iraq demanded to set a timeframe that determine their withdrawal. US forces said that such a decision can be reached only with actual facts.