US, Iraq agree to let troops stay until 2011
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The United States and Iraq have reached a final agreement after months of negotiation on a landmark pact to allow US troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011, US and Iraqi officials said.
The two countries also reached a compromise on the difficult question of whether US troops could be tried in Iraqi court for crimes committed while deployed in Iraq, an issue that both sides had long said was holding up the pact.
The agreement was submitted to Iraqi political leaders for approval, a first step toward ratifying it in the Iraqi parliament, Iraq's government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
A US official in Washington confirmed that the final draft had been agreed by both sides and would require US troops to leave by the end of 2011 unless Iraq asks them to stay longer.
The administration of US President George W Bush had long resisted committing to timetables for withdrawing from Iraq, and US officials had in the past declined to comment on any deadlines that might be contained in the agreement.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the agreement envisions US forces withdrawing from Iraqi towns and villages by the middle of next year, and withdraw completely from the country within three years unless a new pact is agreed.
The US official confirmed that a compromise had been reached on the immunity issue but gave no further details.
The bilateral pact replaces a UN Security Council resolution enacted after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and will give Iraq's elected government authority over the U.S. troop presence for the first time.
- Reuters
