BAGHDAD, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell landed in Baghdad Sunday and, in an interview with Fox News, said the governing ministers need time to prepare.
The highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country since the war ended, Powell met with members of the U.S.-led Provisional Authority. Iraq's new Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari afterward said he hoped Iraq will have an elected government by the middle of next year, Voice of America reported.
The trip follows inconclusive talks in Geneva with the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's future.
The United States, Britain, China, France and Russia were unable to agree on a timetable for the transfer of political power to the Iraqi people.
France suggested a new Iraqi government within a month, a draft constitution by year's end and elections by next spring.
Powell dismissed this as "totally unrealistic," the BBC reported.
