Iraqi protesters demand polls ahead of UN meeting

Baghdad - Thousands of Iraqis marched through Baghdad Monday demanding elections to choose a sovereign government, ahead of talks later in the day at the United Nations on the country's political future.

Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer and members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council were due to meet U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss the transfer of sovereignty. Washington hopes to persuade the United Nations to play a role in the hope this will help win over Iraqis.

Bremer and the Governing Council are likely to press Annan to send a team of experts to Iraq help convince supporters of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, that his call for direct general elections is not feasible now.

Annan has said safety conditions in Iraq were too dangerous since he ordered out international staff in October, following attacks on U.N. offices and humanitarian groups in Baghdad.

The precarious security situation was highlighted by a suicide bomb blast on Sunday at the gates of the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad which killed at least 20 people.

Under the current U.S. plan, regional caucuses will select a transitional assembly by end-May, and this will in turn pick an interim sovereign government by end-June. Full elections would follow after the writing of a constitution in 2005.

But Sistani's supporters want elections sooner. Thousands waved banners and shouted slogans in support of Sistani at the protest in Baghdad.

"Just as there are elections in Europe and America there should be elections here," said one of the demonstrators, Abu Qarar al-Bahadiri.

"America says it is democratic and brings freedom to countries. Well then it should bring us elections. Especially as we lived through 35 years of darkness, we need to have an election that represents the people."

U.N. WARY

U.N. officials have not ruled out sending a team to Iraq, in addition to one already planned to look at security. But they have given many reasons why the world body should not send a sizable complement of foreign political staff back to Baghdad.

Security is the main concern. An August 19 suicide attack at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 people, including the mission head, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

But a more telling reason, that has annoyed the United States and Britain for weeks, is reluctance to intervene and validate a process the world body had no role in formulating.

Sunday's attack, in which two U.S. contractors were among the dead, was the deadliest in Iraq since the capture of Saddam Hussein last month.

Witnesses said one man was killed and 13 were wounded on Sunday night when a hand grenade was hurled at crowd near a Shi'ite shrine in the holy city of Kerbala, 70 miles south of Baghdad.

Washington's efforts to broaden international participation were expected to bear more fruit on Monday when Japanese troops cross from Kuwait into Iraq. A team of 35 soldiers will pave the way for a total force of up to 1,000 destined for what Japanese officials say will be a non-combat role.

Their dispatch marks a historic shift away from Japan's purely defensive post-war security policy and poses a political risk for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose government could be rocked if there are casualties. -- Reuters

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