The United States and Britain have proposed giving Iraq's new leaders the right to send home US-led troops, a concession Baghdad's foreign minister says will speed up adoption of a UN resolution on Iraq's future.
The two countries amended their draft UN Security Council resolution, aimed at giving international endorsement to an Iraqi interim government that takes office on June 30 and authorising a US-led force to keep the peace.
Previously only a transitional government, expected to be elected by January 31, 2005, would have had the right to ask troops to leave, providing the council approved.
The new revisions, coupled with Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari's broad acceptance of the resolution, prompted critics France, Russia, Germany and others to drop some of the their earlier demands.
The resolution now gives clearer language on the withdrawal of the 160,000 US-led multinational force when a permanent Iraqi government takes office in about December 2005. And Zebari rejected proposals for a veto over operations of the international troops.