By IRNA,
Baghdad : Iraqi cabinet on Sunday approved a security agreement that calls for a full withdrawal of American forces from the country by the end of 2011.
The cabinet’s decision brings a final date for the departure of American troops a significant step closer after more than five and a half years of war.
The proposed pact must still be approved by Iraq’s Parliament, in a vote scheduled to take place in a week.
But leaders of some of the largest parliamentary blocs expressed confidence that with the backing of most Shia and Kurds they had enough support to ensure its approval.
Twenty-seven of the 28 cabinet ministers who were present at the two and-a-half-hour session voted in favor of the pact.
Nine ministers were absent. The nearly unanimous vote was a victory for the ruling party and its Kurdish partners.
The proposed agreement, which took nearly a year to negotiate with the United States, not only sets a date for American troop withdrawal, but puts new restrictions on American combat operations in Iraq starting January 1 and requires an American military pullback from urban areas by June 30.
Those hard dates reflect a significant concession by the departing Bush administration, which had been publicly averse to timetables.
Iraq also obtained a significant degree of jurisdiction in some cases over serious crimes committed by Americans who are off duty and not on bases.