Beckett: Transfer of security control to Iraq 'essential'
British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett today said that transferring control of Iraq’s security from the US-led coalition to the government was essential.
Beckett arrived in Baghdad late on Sunday night on her first trip to the country since taking up the foreign minister post in May, and met on yesterday morning with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.
“There has been responsibility that has been transferred already and we hope and believe that that is a process that will continue,” Beckett said about Iraqi forces assuming responsibility for the country’s security.
She added that it was “absolutely key that we see that responsibility being able to be exercised by the representatives of the elected government of Iraq”.
The US-led coalition has been gradually handing over security control in parts of the country to Iraqi forces.
British forces handed over control of the southern Muthana province to their Iraqi counterparts in July, and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki announced last month that another southern province, Dhi Qar, would follow in September.
“I recognise that at the end of the day, security in this country must a prime responsibility for the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security services,” Saleh said.
“As we build these capacities, more Iraqi forces will assume responsibilities and less reliance will be on multinational forces … This is an enduring partnership to defeat terrorism.”
British officials have repeatedly spoken of handing over control to Iraqi forces in 2007 and have said British forces in the country could be cut to between 3,000 and 4,000 by mid-2007.
However, Britain’s top soldier, army chief Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, said in an interview published in The Guardian yesterday that the figure represented a “hope” – and previous hopes about Iraq had not been fulfilled.
Mrs Beckett was also to meet with Maliki and with President Jalal Talabani later in the day, while the Foreign Office in London said she also planned to meet US and British officials.
Over the past week, a disagreement emerged over the handover of Iraq’s armed forces command from the coalition to Iraq.
A highly anticipated ceremony, which was to have marked the formal transfer of control of Iraq’s armed forces to the government, had been scheduled for Saturday but was called off at the last minute.
The two sides still had “to complete some legal and protocol procedures that will lead to a complete understanding between the Iraqi government and the multinational troops,” the Ministry of Defence said.
Yesterday, Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said the ceremony would be held “if not the end of this week, early next week - depending on the prime minister’s schedule”.
Handing over control from the coalition to Iraqi authorities is a key part of any eventual withdrawal of international troops in the country.
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