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Thousands march in Iraq for early polls

UN to meet Iraqis as Annan mulls return

REUTERS, AFP, Baghdad
Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Basra Thursday in support of a call by Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric for direct elections to be held within months to select a sovereign Iraqi government.
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has objected to US plans for a transitional Iraqi assembly to be selected by regional caucuses rather than an election. The assembly will select an interim government that is due to take over sovereignty by end-June.
The demonstration in mainly Shiite Basra was the latest sign that many of Iraq's majority Shi'ites are backing Sistani's call, complicating Washington's efforts to win widespread support for its plans for the handover of power.
A bomb was found on a street in Basra close to where the protesters were gathering, and British troops sealed off the area while they prepared to destroy it in a controlled explosion, witnesses said.
US officials and most of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council say the country cannot hold elections until 2005. They have been trying to persuade Sistani to soften his stance.
Paul Bremer, Iraq's US governor, has said he respects Sistani, but that there is not enough time to
hold elections before the handover of sovereignty. US officials say they are reviewing the plan to hold regional caucuses to try to make the process as open and transparent as possible.
The United States and Governing Council are pushing for the United Nations to play a role in the political transition by overseeing the regional caucuses.
Abdel Aziz Hakim, a Shiite Muslim on the Governing Council, wrote to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan late last year asking the UN to study the possibility of early elections or to find a compromise between various positions on how to choose an assembly.
AFP adds: The UN Security Council said Wednesday it will meet next week with Iraqi leaders and Secretary General Kofi Annan during a flurry of diplomacy aimed at mapping out Iraq's future.
With the United States pressing for a UN return to Iraq that could bolster its plans for a transition to Iraqi self-rule on June 30, the council will meet Annan and members of the handpicked Iraqi Governing Council on Monday.
Annan will also meet separately with the Iraqi delegation as he seeks to determine what role the United Nations could play in Iraq and whether it would be safe to send his staff back to the country.
The announcement came just a
day after Annan took his first tentative step toward resuming major UN operations there with plans to send a four-man team to Baghdad to assess security in the next two weeks.
"We will have a discussion on the future of Iraq and the present situation, " said Ambassador Heraldo Munoz of Chile, the current Security Council president.
Ambassador John Negroponte of the United States, which says it wants the world body to play a "vital" role but has provided little in the way of concrete details, welcomed the developments.
He said the US-led coalition would help the UN scouting team and said Monday's meeting with the governing council, led by current president Adnan Pachachi, was a "step forward" in getting the United Nations back in Iraq.
"By having the dialogue at such a high level, I think that augurs well for the prospects of moving this issue forward," he told reporters.
"It's a sign that the United Nations is taking a hard look at some of the practicalities of reengaging in Iraq."
Annan pulled non-Iraqi UN staff out of the country after a series of deadly attacks on aid agencies, including a truck bombing that killed his top envoy and 21 others at the UN's Baghdad headquarters in August.