IRAQ: Mr Paul Bremer, the US governor of Iraq, announced he was returning home for consultation yesterday on a day when tens of thousands demonstrated against the occupation in Basra.
Mr Bremer is expected to meet tomorrow with President Bush, Ms Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, and the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, to discuss the complicated transition to Iraqi self-rule this summer.
The US is reviewing how a Iraqi transitional government will be chosen after Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric demanded that the process include direct elections. These would favour the majority Shi'ites.
At the UN, Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan invited a delegation of the Iraqi Governing Council and the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to a meeting on Monday to define what the UN should do over the next year.
Britain's top envoy in Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, has said he will attend the session, but the US has left open until the last minute who it will send.
"It is important to have Bremer here to support the process of dialogue between the United Nations and the governing council," one US official said.
Mr Bremer's presences is important to convince Mr Annan to send UN staff back to Iraq. The US has called for UN participation in reconstruction efforts, and would like Mr Annan's help in dealing with Shi'ite demands.
Mr Annan withdrew all international staff from Iraq in October after attacks on relief workers and the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19th that killed 22 staff and visitors, including the mission chief Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The US and the Governing Council on November 15th set out a timetable for self-rule that would calls for regional caucuses to choose a provisional assembly by May 31st.
This body would elect a transitional government by June 30st. A new constitution is expected to be completed by March 15th, 2005, followed by an election for a permanent government chosen by the public by the end of December 2005.
In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, tens of thousands of demonstrators shouting: "No to America" marched yesterday, supporting a call by Iraq's senior Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for direct elections.
According to one of his aides, Ayatollah al-Sistani could issue an edict banning Iraqis from backing a US-appointed interim cabinet if Washington did not hold direct elections for an Iraqi government.- (Reuters)