MOSCOW, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Russia's foreign minister Friday repeated his country's call to establish a timetable for the evacuation of foreign troops from Iraq.
"I don't believe anyone would support the immediate withdrawal of international forces under current conditions," Sergei Lavrov told the German magazine Der Spiegel according to a report from the RIA Novosti news agency. "A sudden withdrawal or a stampede could entail catastrophic consequences, but it is also unacceptable to maintain a military presence there forever."
Lavrov said the timetable for a military evacuation of the mainly U.S. armed forces operating in Iraq should be careful planned and take place over a period of time and the job of keeping law and order in the California-sized nation of 28 million people should be transferred entirely to the new Iraqi security forces, RIA Novosti said.
"We proposed that a year ago, when another resolution prolonged a mandate on the presence of multinational forces in Iraq," Lavrov said. "We were convinced that a timetable for withdrawal was necessary, which would show Iraqis that it (the largely American military force deployment) would not be forever and that the country belonged to them."
On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told an informal session of Russia-NATO Council in Spain that major Muslim nations in the region should also be involved in ensuring the evacuation of foreign military forces from Iraq, RIA Novosti said.
"We can not exclude a number of leading countries in the Middle East from the process of Iraqi settlement that can really influence the process and are ready to take part in the conflict settlement," Ivanov said.
Ivanov said he meant nations such as Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt to participate in the process, RIA Novosti said.
