| 2008: Rice urges Iraqis to approve budget, oil & gas bills |
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January 16, 2008 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday urged the Iraqi parliament to approve 2008 budget, oil & gas as well as provincial elections bills. Rice arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday morning on a surprise visit and met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, his two deputies Tareq al-Hashemi and Adel Abdul Mahdi, Head of the Supreme Iraqi Council Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and President of Iraq's Kurdistan region Massoud Barazani. "Passing the Justice and Accountability Law is a good step on the road to reconciliation," Rice told a news conference with her Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zibari, in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone. She added, however, that there was "still a lot of work to be done," pointing to the need for provincial elections and the fact that a national oil and gas bill is still stalled before parliament. Rice encouraged the prime minister to promote the progress of the other benchmark legislation, including provincial elections, constitutional amendments and a law to share the country's oil and gas resources among the different sects. She said that since her last visit to Iraq a month ago, she had seen "continued progress on the political front, particularly in the reconciliation that the Iraqi people themselves are carrying out at the grassroots front." The oil and gas draft law is currently one of the most controversial issues in the Iraqi arena, and there are differences between the political blocs on the law. It concerns the primary wealth of the country; the Sunni Parties had reservations about its present form, and Kurds’ objections concern the relationship between their regional government and the central one in Baghdad. If the present oil and gas law is passed it will give Iraqi and foreign investors the right to establish oil facilities and refineries and invest them for a period of 50 years, after which they revert to the Iraqi government. "Rice discussed with President Talabani and his two deputies as well as president of Kurdistan important issues like approving the accountability and justice law," a presidential statement said earlier received by Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). "This law is clearly a step forward for national reconciliation, it is clearly a step forward for the process of healing the wounds of the past," Rice said. The law is an alternative for the debaathification law, enacted by former U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer, who ruled Iraq after the fall of the former regime in April 2003. Since it was first announced by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in June 2007, the draft has been facing fierce opposition and several reservations, mostly by the Sadrists, who occupy 30 out of a total 275 seats in parliament. Once the law is passed, about 30,000 Baathists, or members of the former ruling Baath Party, would be allowed to return to their original jobs and receive their retirement rights. She also talked bout the cut in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, underlining that U.S. President George Bush will take the decision after meeting American military leaders in Iraq to consult with them. There are more than 180,000 U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. |