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Talabani: The aim is to “conceive a joint vision for the next Iraqi regime” after Saddam
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DUBAI,
November 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A rift-plagued
conference of six Iraqi opposition groups set for November 22-25 in
Brussels has been delayed for two weeks for “technical reasons”, a
newspaper reported Thursday, November 14.
Arabic
daily Al-Hayat quoted a source on the organizing committee
saying “numerous delegates mainly from Arab countries” had
difficulties obtaining visas to enter Belgium, Agence France-Presse
(AFP) reported.
Preparations
were however well under way, the same source said, adding that a hall
had been hired and security arranged for gathering intended to forge a
common position on a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
The
Belgian foreign ministry announced Wednesday, November 13, that
representatives of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had
applied for permission to hold the conference next week.
“We
told them that such gatherings do not require authorization in
Belgium, provided they are held on private property and respect public
order,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The
Belgian authorities were not involved with the conference planned for
a Brussels hotel, he added.
The
meeting brings together the three groups plus the Iran-based Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Iraqi National
Accord Movement and the Constitutional Monarchy Movement.
The
aim is to “conceive a joint vision for the next Iraqi regime”,
after Saddam, according to PUK chief Jalal Talabani as U.S. war plans
to oust the Iraqi president gather pace.
U.S.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday, November 12,
that Washington was “not unduly concerned” by the rifts in the
fractured Iraqi opposition.
“This
is obviously an important event and it is not unusual that there
should be differences of opinion as well as high hopes and
expectations,” Boucher said.
“Nevertheless,
we are confident that free Iraqis everywhere can together fashion a
common vision for their country’s future.”
A
prominent Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, wrote to the U.S. State
Department, which backs the six groups, decried the Brussels last week
as a “power grab.”
In
October, the leader of PUK, Jalal Talabani said that he opposed a plan
being mulled by the Washington to install an American governor in a
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
“It
is the genuine Iraqi opposition forces that must form an interim
government and organize elections in which the Iraqi people would
choose their representatives,” AFP quoted Talabani as telling the
Dubai-based Saudi-owned MBC satellite television.
“We
do not support any action that does not give the Iraqi people the full
choice (to decide how they should be governed), and we will not
support an invasion that imposes on us a government from outside, even
if it is democratic,” he stressed.
U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed on October 11 that
Washington was considering installing a military occupation government
in Baghdad, one of several contingency plans being worked on as U.S.
officials prepare for possible military action to oust Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein.
The
proposed government would be along the lines of those imposed in
post-World War II Germany and Japan.
The
New York Times reported earlier the same day that Washington
had a plan for the occupation of Iraq that calls for a U.S.-led
military government and war-crime trials for Iraqi leaders.
The
plan includes a transition to an elected civilian government in Iraq
that could take months or years, it reported, citing unnamed senior
administration officials.
The
initial role of Iraqi opposition forces in a post-Saddam government
would be scaled back, the paper said.
The
plan would put an American military commander in charge of Iraq -
perhaps General Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf -
for a year or more while the United States and its allies searched for
and destroyed Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, according
to the Times.
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