By NNN-KUNA,
United Nations : Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has estimated that the Iraqi-US security arrangements will be finalised before the end of July and therefore the Multi National Force (MNF) in Iraq will not be needed beyond December 31 of this year when its mandate expires.
“We hope that we’ll reach this agreement before the end of July,” Zebari told KUNA following a meeting with the Arab Group to explain the role of the MNF in Iraq Thursday.
Zebari is in New York to address the Security Council Friday as it renews for six months, and supposedly for the last time, the US-led MNF mandate in Iraq whose mandate expires on December 31 of this year.
However, if the arrangements are not in place by the end of July, Zebari hinted in a letter to the council Wednesday that the MNF will have to remain in Iraq beyond December.
“Iraq still needs the assistance and support of MNF…. Please do note that Iraq is currently negotiating bilateral security arrangement with the US and other friendly nations that should, once implemented, address Iraq’s security needs covered at present by MNF’s mandate,” he said in his letter.
“The MNF’s role is very big. The strategy of the surge from last year to now has achieved a lot. The cooperation between Iraqi forces and MNF contributed to all these good results,” Zebari told KUNA.
Zebari later told reporters that he briefed the Arab ambassadors about the security and political situation in Iraq.
He said he will request the council Friday to review the MNF mandate “for six months until the end of 2008. We hope it will be the last time … and will replace the international mandate (MNF) with a bilateral agreement between Iraq and the US.”
He said the talks with the US on the agreement “are going well and there is progress being achieved both on the strategic framework agreement and on the status of forces agreement. I am a member of the Iraqi negotiating team so I know the details. I think they are promisinng also at the same time.”
On the opening of Arab embassies in Baghdad, Zebari said there are good pledges from Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt, adding that the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have already opened offices there.