LJWorld.com

Baghdad — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki raised the possibility Friday that his country won't sign a status of forces of agreement with the United States and that it will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

Al-Maliki made the comment after weeks of complaints from Shiite Muslim lawmakers that U.S. proposals for a continued troop presence would infringe on Iraq's sovereignty.

"Iraq has another option that it may use," al-Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."

Earlier, al-Maliki acknowledged that talks with the U.S. on a status of forces agreement "reached an impasse" after the American negotiators presented a draft that would have given the U.S. access to 58 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for both U.S. troops and private contractors.

The Iraqis rejected those demands, and U.S. diplomats have submitted a second draft, which Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told McClatchy Newspapers included several major concessions. Among those would be allowing Iraq to prosecute private contractors for violations of Iraqi law and a requirement that U.S. forces turn over to Iraqi authorities any Iraqis the Americans detain.

Salih stressed that the Iraqi government wants to reach an agreement with the United States. But he said the Iraqi government wouldn't be pressured into accepting terms that compromised Iraq's rights as a sovereign state.

"Our American allies need to understand and realize that this agreement must be respectful of Iraqi sovereignty," Salih said. "We need them here for a while longer, and they know they have to remain here for a while."

American negotiators have hoped the talks would be finished by the end of July, but al-Maliki's remarks - as well as those by influential members of parliament - make that deadline seem unrealistic.

In Baghdad U.S. Embassy spokesman Armand Cucciniello said it was clear to the U.S. that al-Maliki "was referring to the first draft" and that negotiations would continue, "based on the fundamental principle of Iraqi sovereignty. We are looking forward to a successful conclusion of the negotiations."

Meanwhile, the status of forces negotiations were the backdrop for an announcement by rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that he had created a special branch of his militia that would be allowed to carry weapons and attack American troops.

The remainder of his 60,000-strong Mahdi Army militia should lay down its weapons, according to the announcement, which came two months before a cease-fire Sadr imposed on his forces is due to expire.

Al-Sadr has been struggling for the past year to remain at the head of a militant anti-American movement and at the same time remain part of Iraq's political process, and the announcement seemed intended to allow al-Sadr to continue to straddle that line.

Militants authorized to carry weapons "will direct them toward the occupier only. In fact, all other attacks will be prohibited," al-Sadr's statement said.

The rest of his followers would resist "Western ideology" through "cultural, religious and ideological means."

A top aide, Salah al-Obaidi, said the creation of the special force was a rejection of any long-term presence by U.S. troops in Iraq.

"We know that a number of American soldiers will pull outside of Iraq and they will concentrate their presence in certain bases, and so we need to change the way we work," al-Obaidi said. "It is a message to the people negotiating the agreement that as long as there are American forces inside Iraq, we cannot stray from what we have adopted in our principles - to oppose the American presence in Iraq."