IRAQ: The United States and Britain began talks with Iraqi factions on reshaping Iraq yesterday, urging them to bury their differences and work to build a democracy.
The religious and political leaders, who met at a makeshift US air base beside the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur in southern Iraq, agreed to meet again in 10 days, according to a statement published on the website of the US Central Command.
The 13-point statement, approved by consensus, according to one group that attended, advocated a federal democracy and the dissolution of Saddam Hussein's once-feared Baath party.
But the meeting, which spurred protests in the nearby town of Nassiriya by crowds denouncing any form of US rule, raised as many questions as answers in a country split along ethnic, religious and political lines.
In Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, US and British troops worked alongside local police to try to restore order on the streets after the 26-day war that ousted Saddam, but troops remained wary of possible attacks by diehard Saddam loyalists.
Mr Jay Garner, the retired US general leading the effort to rebuild Iraq, opened the conference, which was held in a big white marquee pitched next to a stepped ziggurat temple.
"What better birthday can a man have than to begin it not only where civilization began but where a free Iraq and a democratic Iraq will begin today?" asked Mr Garner, who turned 65 yesterday and wore a twin US and Iraqi flag pin on his shirt.
Mr Garner will be in charge of an interim administration that Washington hopes will be set up in about two weeks and will remain in force until an Iraqi government takes over.
"We want you to establish your own democratic system based on Iraqi traditions and values," US President Mr George W. Bush's special envoy to the region, Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, said. "I urge you to take this opportunity to co-operate with each other."
But events surrounding the meeting, which was boycotted by a major Iran-based Shia Muslim group, served notice that ruling post-war Iraq will not be easy.
"We cannot be part of a process which is under an American general," a spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said, explaining its boycott.
Mr Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi businessman favoured by the Pentagon for a role in Iraq, did not attend in person, although he had talks with Mr Garner on the eve of the meeting.
The start of the meeting was delayed for unexplained reasons and thousands of Iraqis protested in Nassiriya, saying they wanted to rule themselves and making clear they opposed rule by the US as much as by Saddam.
About 80 Iraqis, from radical and mainstream Shia and Sunni Muslim, Kurdish and monarchist groups, attended the talks near Ur, 375 km south of Baghdad.
The 13-point statement rejected political violence, meted out by Saddam to silence opponents or potential rivals. It said Iraqis must choose their own leaders and not have them imposed from outside.
Little else was agreed except that the delegates should reconvene in 10 days at a location that is yet to be decided.- (Reuters)