Ex-PM says Iraqis reject security deal

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that Iraqis have expressed their rejection of the long-term security agreement that is scheduled to take place with Washington. The remark was made during Jaafari’s meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran yesterday. “For the first time, Iraqis have expressed their viewpoint on the agreement,” the Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Jaafari as saying, in reference to a recent massive demonstration staged by Sadrists. Jaafari, who heads the National Reform Movement, discussed the security deal with the head of the Expediency Discernment Council, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Last Saturday, Sadrists or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr took to Baghdad streets in a demonstration against the security agreement that is scheduled to take place with the United States. The media director of Sadr’s office in Baghdad’s eastern side of al-Rasafa had said that nearly one million people took part in the demonstration against foreign presence in Iraq and the long-term security agreement. The U.S. and Iraqi governments are currently negotiating a security pact that would regulate the presence of foreign troops in the country after 2008. A declaration of principles was signed between U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in December 2007. The declaration was scheduled to be ratified on July 31, 2008 and to come into force as of January 1, 2009. The agreement governs the presence of U.S. forces in the country after 2008 and will not come into force without the approval of the Iraqi Parliament, which has 275 members from five blocs, in addition to the Sadrist movement and al-Fadhila party. The U.S. troops’ presence currently relies on a mandate by the United Nations and is annually renewed at the request of the Iraqi government. SS (S) 1