UN vote paves way to new age for Iraq

IRAQ’s interim president hailed the beginning of a "new age" in his country’s history yesterday after the UN Security Council unanimously backed US and British plans to end the occupation of Iraq and the transfer of power to a sovereign government.

Following weeks of negotiations and a last minute concession to France and Germany the resolution was passed 15 votes to 0 in front of a packed council chamber.

Yesterday’s resolution gives international legitimacy to the handover of power on 30 June by defining the powers of the new Iraqi government and its relationship with the US-led coalition and more controversially, it authorises a US-led multinational force to use "all necessary measures" to keep the peace.

Iraq’s interim president, Ghazi al-Yawar, said yesterday: "It means full sovereignty for Iraq. It means a new age in a hopefully very pleasant Iraqi history,"

Hoghyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister said: "The significance of this resolution ... is to take away the concept of occupation, which I would say was the main reason for many of the difficulties that we have been going through since liberation."

The resolution attempts to pave the way for democracy by giving a timetable for elections - not later than 31 January, 2005. It puts Iraq in charge of its oil proceeds and calls for the United Nations to help with elections, a constitution and many other tasks.

Control of the 160,000 US-led troops was the most contentious issue in the resolution.

The United States pledged "partnership" and co-ordination with Iraq’s leaders but did not agree to give Baghdad a virtual veto over major military offensives as France, Germany, Algeria and others had wanted.

However, the resolution gives the Iraqi interim government the right to order US troops to leave at any time and makes clear the mandate of the international force would expire by the end of January 2006.

US officials late on Monday added a paragraph to the resolution summing up an exchange of letters between Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, and Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister.

The letters pledged that the American commander and Iraqi leaders would consult and co-ordinate "fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations", through a new security committee which Mr Allawi chairs.

Final talks securing the deal are believed to have taken place while Mr Bush visited France for the D-Day commemorations, and he had private talks with President Jacques Chirac before heading to Normandy.

American officials said then that Mr Chirac had expressed the view that there could now be unanimity in the UN Security Council.

All day yesterday, diplomats and senior politicians made it clear that the deal had been struck and the vote was a formality.

Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister said many French ideas were incorporated in the final text, though Paris would have liked a clearer definition of the relationship between the new Iraqi government and the US-led force.

"That doesn’t stop us from a positive vote in New York to help in a constructive way find a positive exit to this tragedy," he told France-Inter radio.

Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister also said his country would be backing the resolution. "I hope that now there will finally be a stabilisation of the security situation in Iraq," Mr Fischer said in Berlin.

Many other council members who had problems with the early US-British drafts of the resolution also announced their support for the final resolution during the day. They included China, which had proposed major changes, and Algeria, the council’s only Arab member which argued for greater Iraqi control over its own military and over major operations by the multinational force.

The US president, George Bush claimed victory before the vote, claiming at the G8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, that a unanimous approval would tell the world that the council nations "are interested in working together to make sure Iraq is free, peaceful and democratic."

"These nations understand that a free Iraq will serve as a catalyst for change in the broader Middle East, which is an important part of winning the war on terror," he said.

But his administration lowered expectations of gaining other countries’ military support - one of the original hopes behind the resolution. Four members of the G8 summit - France, Germany, Russia and Canada - have said they won’t send troops to take the burden off the 138,000 American soldiers and the 24,000 troops from coalition partners.

The Bush administration was anxious for a vote early this week on the official transfer of sovereignty so disputes over the resolution did not overshadow the G8 summit.

The resolution is expected to help patch up deep divisions on Iraq, prompted by the US-led invasion, opposed by major European nations and most other countries around the world. Many diplomats praised the United States for taking account of their views and not forcing a confrontation.

"I think it shows the international community coming together again to support the Iraqi people in their efforts to build a country that rests on the foundations of democracy and freedom and the rights of all," Mr Powell said in Washington before yesterday’s vote.