IRAQ: A major conference to chart Iraq's future, due to be held tomorrow, has been postponed until mid-August following pressure from the UN, a source on the preparatory committee said.
The UN has recently pushed for a delay to allow more time to plan such an important gathering and make it more inclusive.
Members of the preparatory committee met a UN representative in Iraq, Mr Jamal Benomar, and President Ghazi al-Yawar yesterday and agreed to a conditional postponement.
Pressure had been mounting for days for the event to be put off. Besides concerns that arrangements for a conference that would draw 1,000 delegates to Baghdad from across the country had been too hasty, there are serious security fears.Wednesday's suicide bombing north of Baghdad which killed at least 70 people, and fighting south of the capital in which more than 40 died, have clearly underlined those concerns.
As well as bombs, there was a risk that a months-long campaign by insurgents and criminals to kidnap foreigners and senior Iraqis could target the delegates.
Organisers of the conference, billed as a crucial step in Iraq's post-war transition ahead of elections in January, were confident earlier yesterday that it would not have to be put off.
"The security situation is such that it has become a part of every Iraqi's life now - if you postponed everything for security, you'd have to postpone your life as well," an aide said.
A key step on the road to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule, the chief task of the event's delegates will be to select a 100-member National Council, which will serve as a check on the interim government until elections.
Many groups had said they would boycott the gathering, saying it either wasn't properly inclusive or was designed to favour certain parties.
In the past week, Mr Benomar has met dozens of Iraqi groups that feel ostracised from the political process and has acted as a go-between with the conference's organisers in trying to get them to participate in the act of national unity.
"Everybody is very much aware that the conference should take place in the best possible conditions, that it should be as inclusive as possible and that it should generate substantive debate on the country's future," he said before the delay.
The postponement comes amid continued violence.
After a brief lull in attacks in the first 10 days of the government taking office, strikes have surged in the past two weeks, culminating in Wednesday's car- bomb attack, the worst death toll from a single act of violence in Iraq in 11 months.
In a further extension of the hostage crisis, a Somali driver was seized yesterday by a militant group linked to al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and threatened with beheading unless his Kuwaiti employer stops operating in Iraq, al-Jazeera television said.
The kidnapping came hours after two Pakistani Muslims, a driver and engineer seized last week, were killed by their captors, who had demanded that their employer pull out of Iraq.
The Prime Minister, Mr Iyad Allawi, on a regional tour to address security concerns, said he hoped to hold talks with President Bush in the US shortly.
He was speaking in Saudi Arabia after meeting the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, who gave his backing to a proposal for a Muslim force in Iraq and said he hoped it could provide protection to the UN, when it returns.
Meanwhile in violence in Iraq, a Polish soldier was killed and three were wounded by a remote-controlled mine explosion overnight, the Polish military said. - (Reuters)