US-Iraq agreement negotiations face snags-MP

Source: Voice of Iraq

Baghdad, may23, (VOI)-A lawmaker from the parliament’s security committee on Friday said negotiations between Iraq and the US were facing sticking points over military troops movements in the violence-ravaged country and its liability to domestic laws.

“Negotiations were facing sticking poins over counterterrorism and whether the arrest right to be in the hands of Iraqi forces or US troops”, Abbas al-Bayati, MP from the United Iraq Alliance(UIA), told Aswat al-Iraq.
Last December,a manifesto for an accord signed by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the US president George W. Bush as an introduction for an extensive agreement to be signed on July31 and to take into action by 2009 January.

The lawmaker noted “the accord contains security liabilities and gurantees to protect Iraq from any external aggression violating its sovereignty, territorial, air and martime unity in long-term strategic framework”.
He added “the second sticking point revolved over the mechanism to regulate the entrance and departure of troops, whether by visa or at fixed airports”.

The MP expresses Iraq’s determination to “negotiate until reaching a balanced agreement protecting the rights of the two participating sides”.


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