UN council extends U.S.-led force in Iraq one year

By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday unanimously renewed the mandate of the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq through the end of 2007, granting a request from the Baghdad government.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton welcomed the vote a day ahead of planned talks in Jordan between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on how to bring violence under control and whether Iran and Syria could help.

The vote showed all countries in the region that the Security Council strongly backed "stability in Iraq and continued progress toward democracy," Bolton said. "We all share the same objective and I think that is something the neighboring countries need to take into account."

But Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he regretted the resolution made no mention of the need to heal the deep divisions in Iraqi society, as Moscow had suggested.

France believed that offering a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops would show "that the goal of the international community was to restore Iraq's sovereignty," said French Deputy Ambassador Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

LinkHere