Top cleric deputises parl., govt. to sign deal – PM

NAJAF/IraqiNews.com: Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday said the religious authority saw the responsibility of signing the long-term security agreement with the U.S. lay in hands of the parliament and government institutions. “His Eminence Sayyed (Ali) al-Sistani said the issue (of signing the U.S-Iraq security agreement) is up to Iraqis and their political parties,” Maliki told reporters after meeting Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy Shiite city of Najaf. Washington and Baghdad are currently negotiating a security pact that would decide the future of U.S. forces in Iraq after the present UN mandate expires at the end of this year. The UN mandate currently acts as the legal framework for the presence of foreign forces in the violence-wracked country. Maliki noted the top Shiite cleric did not object the negotiations, but expressed objections against “imposing things on the Iraqi people,” adding if measures approved by the government and endorsed by parliament, he would be “satisfied with what Iraqis have reached”. It would be difficult to finalize the pact without the blessing of Sistani, who wields great influence over Iraq’s Shiites. The premier also said that Sistani called for “including all Iraqi denominations into endorsing the deal through constitutional institutions”. He said Washington’s request that its troops be immune from Iraqi law “was still an issue that needed to be resolved”. The agreement states the U.S troops in Iraq would leave Iraqi soil by 31/12/2011 and the presence of U.S. troops inside Iraqi cities to end by 30/06/2009 so that Iraq can exit from the Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Iraqi negotiators have demanded that American soldiers should be subject to Iraqi laws if they commit “grave and intentional mistakes”, a demand which U.S. negotiators have to respond to. U.S. soldiers are currently immune from Iraqi laws. Other thorny issues include the detention of Iraqis and who will command military operations in Iraq. AM(S)/AmR 1