By IRNA,
Baghdad : An Iraqi government spokesman expressed hope that US troops could be out of Iraq by the end of 2010, roughly the same time frame laid out by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.
Barack Obama has called for removing most troops by the summer of that year.
Iraqi spokesman Ali Dabbagh made the remark about removing US troops following a meeting among Obama, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and other officials in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.
The statement added another twist to the controversy surrounding a weekend interview with a German magazine in which Maliki appeared to endorse Obama’s plan to withdraw US troops within 16 months of becoming president.
Dabbagh later cast doubt on the account published in Der Spiegel, saying Maliki’s comments had been ” misunderstood and mistranslated.” Obama, who did not take questions from Iraqi and Western journalists waiting at Maliki’s compound, said, without breaking stride as he left, that the meeting had been “constructive” and he would discuss it later.
Obama wants to scale back the US presence in Iraq and send two additional brigades to Afghanistan, although he has said he would fine-tune his plans based on the advice he receives from military leaders.