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Quit Iraq, Arab states ask America

STAR DESK
Iraq's neighbours, led by Saudi Arabia, told the United States yesterday to get out of the country and keep its hands off Iraqi oil.
Ministers of Iraq's immediate neighbours Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, as well as Egypt and Bahrain, said the United States must restore order and then leave so that Iraqis could form their own government.
They issued a joint statement in Riyadh opposing a US call to lift UN sanctions on Iraq and said Baghdad must be allowed to have a government of its own first.
The ministers said they wanted the United Nations to play a central role in post-war Iraq, echoing similar demands made by European Union leaders at their summit in Athens Thursday. Among those was Washington's key European ally Britain.
"The Iraqi people should administer and govern their country by themselves, and any exploitation of their natural resources should be in conformity with the will of the legitimate Iraqi government and its people," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said early
yesterday, reading from the statement.
Iraq's neighbours "underlined the obligation of the occupying powers under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ... withdraw from Iraq and allow the Iraqis to exercise their right to selfdetermination".
The late-night meeting was held against the backdrop of protests in Baghdad as thousands of demonstrators poured out of mosques on Friday demanding the United States leave the country.
"If what they (United States) intend is the exploitation of Iraqi oil,
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it will not have any legitimate basis," Faisal said.
Washington has called for a quick end to the 12-year-old UN economic sanctions, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, so that oil sales can fund reconstruction.
Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. Riyadh and Kuwait are concerned that their revenues might be hit if Iraqi oil is once again sold on the open market.
Lifting sanctions threatens to trigger another diplomatic tussle as it raises the issue of who controls Iraq's oil sales.
Saudi Arabia said yesterday UN sanctions imposed on Iraq should end only when it has a legitimate government.
"Now Iraq is under an occupying power and any request for lifting sanctions must come when there is a legitimate government which represents the people," said Faisal.
Calls for a UN role in Iraq cut no ice with pro-US Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, newly returned from exile, who said in Baghdad on Friday that the United Nations lacked the capability and credibility to take on a leadership role.
Pullout of us Marines
The heavy US Marine presence completely vanished from Baghdad's streets yesterday, replaced by lighter army units that face the daunting task of rebuilding the city's infrastructure and keeping order.
The army is traditionally responsible for civil affairs issues such as rebuilding security and water and electricity systems and a 30,000-strong task force from the US Fourth Infantry is currently flowing into Iraq from Kuwait.
Amid growing hostility to their presence from locals, the troops will also take on the remnants of Saddam Hussein's diehard Fedayeen militia and suicide bombers.
The United States awarded a 50-million-dollar contract to a private, Virginia-based firm to recruit advisors to train police in post-war Iraq, the State Department and the company said.
Pilgrims' March on Karbala
Tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers were on the march yesterday towards the holy city of Karbala, a pilgrimage that was for many years banned under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Beating their chests and crying "Our
beloved Hussein," the crowds moved south from Baghdad and Babylon towards the central city to mark the death in battle at Karbala in the year 680 of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.
The commemoration, to culminate next Tuesday and Wednesday, was also expected to provide an opportunity for the Shiites to flex their newfound political muscle.
On the sides of the roads, where traffic was brought to a crawl by the crowds of walking pilgrims, makeshift shelters with portraits of Hussein had been set up to sell food from steaming pots to hungry worshippers.
There was only a small military presence on the road from Babylon to Karbala, where Hussein is buried and which lies some 80 kilometres southwest of Baghdad.
Pilgrims, some of whom said they had been walking for 10 days, have come from all over Iraq, where Shiites make up around 60 per cent of the population.
Saddam's ousted regime included no Shiites in senior leadership positions and, fearful of Shiite opposition to his rule, the deposed dictator had banned the Karbala pilgrimage.