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India On Media |
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| Politics
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| Obama meets Iraqi Sunni leaders |
| US Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has held talks with Sunni tribal leaders in the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 22-July-2008
8:18:13 AM |
| Mr Obama met militiamen of the US-backed Awakening Councils movement - a tribal alliance whose members turned against al-Qaeda last year.
On Monday Mr Obama, part of a US congressional delegation, met Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in Baghdad.
He is due to travel to Jordan later, before moving on to Israel.
Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Awakening Councils, said tribal chiefs had told Mr Obama at their meeting in Ramadi that any withdrawal of US forces from Anbar should be carried out cautiously.
Withdrawal timetables
The Illinois senator has advocated pulling US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months if elected president in November.
Mr Maliki told Mr Obama and other US senators on Monday that he hoped US troops could be withdrawn from Iraq by 2010, a goal not too distant from Mr Obama's.
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said that Mr Obama had been "completely wrong" to press for withdrawal timetables, the Associated Press news agency reported.
"When you win wars, troops come home," he said.
The Bush administration is committed to removing US troops from Iraq only when it determines that conditions on the ground allow it.
However, last week, the US and Iraqi governments agreed to include a "general time horizon" for troop withdrawal in a long-term security deal currently being discussed.
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