Iraqi foreign minister wants quick U.N. decision on elections

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Iraq's foreign minister said Saturday he expects the United Nations to accept a U.S. request to study prospects for elections before America transfers power to the Iraqis and hopes the recommendations can be ready quickly -- within two to three weeks.

If there is a pre-handover legislative election, Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press, it would require a census and could delay giving power back to Iraqis by a month or two.

He said the Iraqi Governing Council is committed to the terms of the Nov. 15 agreement it signed with the U.S.-led coalition calling for a transfer of power by July 1. But if "refinements" are needed to provide for an election, he said, "I don't think that would be the end of the world."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday after meeting top officials from the council and the coalition that he would decide "in the next few days" whether to send a team to Iraq. He has already promised U.N. help after the transfer of power in conducting a census and holding elections.

Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Hussein al-Sistani, has demanded that the provisional legislature due to take office by the July 1 handover be elected rather than chosen in a series of regional caucuses as provided for under the Nov. 15 agreement.

The Bush administration asked Annan to send a team to study the feasibility of early elections. U.S. officials believe elections cannot be organized by the July 1 deadline.

Zebari, an Iraqi Kurd, said he believes early elections would be "difficult" and could lead to an outcome that "could be easily challenged by all sides." Iraq has not held a proper census in more than a generation and lacks valid electoral rolls.

Nonetheless, the Iraqi foreign minister said in a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum that he would accept the recommendation of a U.N. team. Zebari was part of the Governing Council delegation that attended a meeting with Annan at U.N. headquarters on Monday and asked him to dispatch U.N. experts.

"I think the U.N. is going to send a commission to Iraq," he said. "The idea is to have ... an international, impartial body to assess and evaluate the feasibility of an election so there is no problem with the Iraqis. But we want unbiased views, scientific views, not a wishful thinking view."

Al-Sistani's aide, Mohammed al-Yehia al-Mawsawi, said Thursday he wants Iraqi experts -- and not just those from the United Nations -- to conclude that early elections are not feasible before the cleric will drop his opposition to the U.S. political blueprint for Iraq.

Zebari said there was "no problem" about including Iraqis. He noted that officials from the planning and interior ministries would be working with a U.N. team to provide the data and information it needs to come to a conclusion.

"I think we should give them enough time, but time is of the essence" because the Governing Council and the coalition have made a commitment to the Iraqi people in the Nov. 15 agreement, he said.

"If we don't live up to that commitment ... the credibility of the council will be seriously undermined and will send the wrong message that those people want to stay in power as long as they want," Zebari said.

"We want to avoid that," he said. "I think it's very important that this commission give us a verdict or a view within the next two to three weeks."

Zebari said work on the temporary constitution to guide the transitional government has been held up because of the dispute over elections and needs to be completed.

If the United Nations says elections are possible, he said, it would take "a few months" to conduct a census and prepare an electoral roll.

Asked whether the handover of power might then have to slip a month or two beyond June 30, Zebari said, "I don't think it would be a major problem."