World powers were set to gather for a historic conference at a luxury resort hotel on Iraq's future in Egypt on Monday, with the focus sharpened by the announcement that the country's first post-Saddam Hussein elections will be held on January 30. The two-day gathering of some 20 foreign ministers and four international organisations in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh has been in the pipeline ever since Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi called for an international forum during a Cairo visit in July. Further impetus to the conference came when the so-called Paris Club of creditor nations agreed to cut Iraq's debt to it—which totals a whopping 40 billion dollars (30 billion euros) -- by 80 percent.
The Iraqi electoral commission gave those attending the conference another topic for debate by calling for both Iraqi and international observers to monitor the elections and expressing the hope that the United Nations would play an important role in the vote. Among Iraq's neighbours, which are to meet first on Monday ahead of plenary sessions, Iran warned that the first day of the conference, which will focus on regional issues, could be the most contentious. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said his country would "protest against the methods of the United States, insist on the necessity of withdrawing American troops from Iraq and the organisation of elections on schedule."
| "They're making us nervous!" |
Syria and Turkey have also sought to coordinate their position, especially their concerns over Kurdish autonomy. Both Ankara and Damascus fear that Iraqi Kurdish aspirations for greater self-rule could destabilise their own Kurdish regions.
| Turks could have fixed this before the war. |
The conference will also bring together Iraq's interim government with officials from the Group of Eight industrialised nations, the Arab League and Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). A 14-point draft Sharm el-Sheikh declaration is based on an Egyptian text that was amended during several preparatory meetings held in Cairo, amid wrangling between France and the United States. It stresses "the leading role of the United States Nations in supporting, as circumstances permit, the political process in Iraq", especially in providing support for the holding of elections by the end of January.
| Not that the UN could actually lead at this point. |
The draft also calls on Iraq's neighbours to prevent militants coming and going from Iraq and stresses that the mandate of US-led troops in the country is not open ended. |