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Khatami recognises Iraq’s council

TEHRAN: President Mohammad Khatami for the first time on Monday expressly recognized the US-backed interim Governing Council, after meeting with Jalal Talabani, a senior Iraqi Kurdish leader and current chair of the US-appointed body.

“We recognise the Iraqi Governing Council and we believe it is capable, with the Iraqi people, of managing the affairs of the country and taking measures leading toward independence,” Khatami said in a statement carried by the student ISNA news agency. Previously, the Islamic republic has been content to officially consider the council a “step” toward putting power back in the hands of Iraqis and refused to recognise an authority installed by a foreign occupation.

Khatami’s statement follows stepped up moves by Washington to transfer power in Baghdad to Iraqis amid deteriorating security and rising US troop deaths.

The council announced Saturday that a new government would be elected and that a constitution would be drafted before the end of 2005. Under the agreement between the council and the US envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremer, a provisional Iraqi government is to be formed by June. It is to be named by a transitional assembly to be elected by the end of May. Talabani, who is leading a high level delegation of seven ministers and 10 members of the Governing Council, had said his two-day visit was aimed at boosting bilateral relations and would also touch on security issues.

Relations between Iran and Iraq, who fought a bloody eight-year war until 1988, have gradually improved since the US-led force ousted the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in April. —AFP

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