IRAQ: Iraq and the US yesterday opened the door to adoption this week of a UN resolution on Baghdad's future by reaching agreement on the co-ordination of US-led troops.
But letters on the subject of major military offensives from the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mr Iyad Allawi, and the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, to the UN Security Council are open to interpretation. The letters do not spell out what would happen if Iraqi leaders opposed a major military operation, as they did during the US assault on Fallujah.
However, Britain's ambassador to the UN, Sir Emyr Jones-Parry, said that the US military could not carry out a major operation without Iraqi consent.
The letters will be attached to the US-British draft resolution which would endorse an interim Iraqi government to take office on June 30th and authorise a US-led multinational force to "use all necessary means" to keep the peace. Iraq's say over military operations has been a crucial unresolved issue.
France is expected to request more clarification on what the letters mean and the position of Russia is still unknown, council diplomats said. Moscow had wanted wider consultations with Arab countries and others on the new Iraqi government.
Security Council members were called into special session yesterday to discuss the letters.
Meanwhile, a car-bomb was detonated earlier yesterday outside an Iraqi-US base in Taji, just north of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding dozens as violence continued ahead of the formal ending of the US-led occupation on June 30th.
A statement purporting to be from a group headed by Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom Washington suspects of links to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the car-bombing, describing it as a suicide attack.
Poland's foreign ministry said that four civilian security guards - two of them Poles and the other two believed to be Americans - were killed in an ambush on their convoy in Baghdad on Saturday. Zarqawi's group also claimed responsibility for that attack.
In other violence on Saturday, two US soldiers were killed and two were wounded when a bomb detonated close to their convoy in north-eastern Baghdad.
South of Baghdad, gunmen burst into a police station in Mussayab and forced officers into a cell before setting off explosives in the building. At least 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.