THE HAGUE/BUDAPEST, 16 November 2004 — Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said yesterday his government will stick to its withdrawal schedule from Iraq, despite an appeal by the United States to keep its troops there as long as needed.
“We leave Iraq by the middle of March. That is the decision. That decision still stands,” Bot told foreign correspondents.
In Budapest, the Hungarian Parliament yesterday rejected a government proposal to extend the stay of 300 non-combat troops in Iraq by three months until March 31.
On Friday, the US State Department urged the Netherlands to stay on.
“We certainly would encourage them to consider how to continue their contribution to the effort in Iraq, through NATO or with their direct deployment,” department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
He added that all countries with troops in Iraq should link their withdrawal plans to Iraqi needs rather than to dates on the calendar.
The scheduled March 15 withdrawal would keep the troops in Iraq beyond elections planned in January for an Iraqi government.
Bot said delaying the elections would mean “havoc” for the creation of an independent leadership.
He also stressed the importance of electing a new leader of the Palestinian Authority after last week’s death of Yasser Arafat. Bot attended Arafat’s funeral service in Egypt, representing the EU and the Netherlands, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
“We are now looking to a new leadership because we feel that if you want to play a role — and we certainly do want to play a role — in the solution of the Middle East conflict we first of all have to know with whom we are dealing on the Palestinian side,” Bot said.
Elections are to be held by Jan. 9.
Bot said the Middle East will be a central topic at a US-EU summit scheduled for later this week.
In Hungary, while the vote was 191 to 159 in support of an extension to the end of March, it was short of the two-thirds majority required.
With its proposal defeated, Hungary’s Parliament obliged the government to withdraw its forces by the end of 2004.
Opposition center-right parties voted against the plan.
Before the vote, Defense Minister Ferenc Juhasz said failure of the motion would damage Hungary’s relations with countries which keep forces in Iraq, where authorities are struggling to dampen insurgency ahead of polls. “If we don’t vote for this... it will have foreign policy consequences for several years to come,” he told Parliament.
The opposition said the troops could not fulfil their mission. “At one point in time (this year) it became clear that we could not accomplish our objective... we cannot build democracy in Iraq,” opposition leader Viktor Orban told news television channel HirTV.
“The current situation will not change ...so we should... think about when we should come home. I would say the sooner the better,” Orban added.
Legislators rejected a last-second plea from Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany who said that returning from Iraq before elections was irresponsible and would mean Hungary had abandoned its mission just steps away from the finish line.
However, Gyurcsany has also acknowledged that paying for the mission and convincing an increasingly sceptical public of the need for a military presence were extremely difficult. Public opinion pollster Median said on Monday that 54 percent of Hungarians would support bringing home troops this year while 19 percent said they should stay until after the Iraqi election.
Only 18 percent said they should stay as long as they are needed.
