Politics

Foreign Affairs Hearing on the Future of U.S.-Iraqi Relations

By Jesse Lee

The Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight has just concluded a hearing, “The Future of U.S.-Iraqi Relations: The Perspective of the Iraqi Parliament.” Witnesses included The Honorable Nadeem Al-Jaberi and The Honorable Khalaf Al-Ulayyan of the Council of Representatives of Iraq.

Full transcript:

“As you know in the history of international relations any signing or any bilateral agreements, if they are not between two equal parties cannot be successful. On the contrary, they may lead to more instability. And these are problems that unequal signatories of treaties can lead to. Therefore what we strive for is establishing a balanced relationship between the two countries. But nothing of this could be made possible until the troops withdraw from Iraq. And then negotiate in an objective manner. In such a way that the interests of both countries are taken into consideration. So that we may reach friendly and solid relations between the peoples of the two countries and our governments.

“However, if we were to make an expedient treaty that may cause problems for the government and the people. And of course we do not need to burden them with more problems. Because it has other a security and economic tasks ahead of it.

“We also were very concerned when we heard that this agreement was not to be proposed in front of the Iraqi parliament. And this goes against the Iraqi Constitution. You cannot put any agreement into application in Iraq, according to the Constitution, unless you have a majority two thirds approval of the parliament. Therefore not presenting it to the parliament may be a factor in this agreement failing. And thank you.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).