LONDON: Exiled Iraqi opposition groups hope to meet next month in London to discuss how the country would be governed if President Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Attempts to set up a conference in Amsterdam or Brussels have foundered as a split widened between Dr Ahmad Chalabi, the exile with the best connections in Washington, and his Islamist and Kurdish opponents in the opposition.
The US administration, opposition officials say, managed at last to bridge the gap between Dr Chalabi and the others sufficiently to hold a meeting that would discuss the future of Iraq in vague terms, without electing a government in exile or deciding on the boundary of a self-governing Kurdish province.
Mr Hoshyar Zebari, head of international relations of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, an armed group now running parts of north Iraq, said the six opposition groups will meet on Thursday to decide on a date for the meeting, likely to be in December.
"This is a very important meeting. We are going to agree on a vision and the future of Iraq based on democracy and federalism," Mr Zebari said after a meeting with British Foreign Office officials.
A Foreign Office spokesman said officials told the exiled Iraqis that Britain had no objection to the conference being held in London. "We have no objection to a meeting . . . Iraqi opposition figures have held meetings here in the past."
Dr Hamed al-Bayati, the London representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shi'ite armed party based in Tehran, said it was possible some delegates would be denied a British visa, which could jeopardise the meeting.
"British officials told us we do not need a permission to hold the conference in London. They asked us to submit visa applications . . . to their embassies," Dr Bayati said.
The steering committee for the meeting has agreed to raise the number of delegates to 300 from 200. Dr Chalabi opposed holding a meeting with 200 delegates, which would have given his Kurdish and Islamist opponents a majority.
Representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council would be invited to the conference, as well as Iraq's neighbours, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
"Saddam ravaged Iran and Kuwait with his wars. We want to commit Iraq to a policy of non-aggression but hold on to the rights of self-defence under international law," Dr Bayati said, dismissing media reports that Iraq would disarm completely under US pressure.
The six opposition groups are: a monarchist movement; Dr Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress; the two Kurdish militias in control of northern Iraq; the Iraqi National Accord and Dr Bayati's Tehran group.
Dr Chalabi's opponents say they should have the main say in deciding the future of Iraq, partly because they have troops on the ground to fight President Saddam.
- (Reuters)