Iraqis End 1-day Meeting on Forming Interim Authority

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Iraqis End 1-day Meeting on Forming Interim Authority

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Representatives of Iraqi religious, tribal and exile groups ended a one-day, U.S.-sponsored meeting in southern Iraq on Tuesday with a call to build a democratic Iraq and a pledge to meet again in 10 days to discuss the shape of an interim authority to govern Iraq under U.S. military occupation.

The meeting, held at a makeshift U.S. air base outside Nasiriyah, took place as hundreds of Iraqis in Baghdad and thousands in Nasiriyah demonstrated against what they view as an American occupation and plans by Washington to impose a puppet government in their country.

''The meeting discussed the principle that Iraqis must choose their leaders, not have them imposed from outside,'' a 13-point statement released after the meeting said.

In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush said the United States will help Iraqis set up a ''just and representative'' in postwar Iraq.

Bush said a free Iraq can be ''an example of reform and progress to all the Middle East.''

The United States invited some 100 representatives of Iraqi groups inside and outside Iraq to the Nasiriyah meeting.

The meeting was chaired by White House special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and attended by Jay Garner, the retired U.S. Army lieutenant general tapped by the Pentagon to be in charge of an interim administration in Iraq.

Source: Agencies

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