Agence France Presse

DUBAI, 30 June 2004 — Gulf Arab states, some of which held strong reservations about the US-led invasion of Iraq last year, have welcomed the power transfer to Iraqis, hoping for a speedy restoration of security to their troubled northern neighbor.

The transfer of power in Iraq is “a step on the right path to building a unified Iraq,” the Gulf Cooperation Council said in a statement in Riyadh yesterday.

The GCC also expressed “confidence (in the capacity) of the interim government and the Iraqi people to overcome the difficult situation Iraq is experiencing, by strengthening national unity.”

The statement reflected the position of the six GCC members that had individually hailed the power handover 14 months after the US-led war to oust Saddam Hussein.

In Muscat, a Foreign Ministry spokesman welcomed the handover and expressed Oman’s support for Iraq’s interim government. In a statement, he hoped the transition would “contribute to development and reconstruction in favor of stability and the well-being of the brotherly Iraqi people.”

Qatar said the transfer of power “is important and necessary for Iraq to recover its sovereignty and independence, and realize security and stability for the Iraqi people.”

The UAE also welcomed the handover of power as “an important new stage along the road to the stability of Iraq” and urged other countries to aid the new Baghdad government “to restore security and stability.”

Bahrain’s King Hamad sent interim Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawar a congratulatory telegram telling him that Manama “wished to strengthen relations with Iraq,” the official BNA news agency reported.

Yemen yesterday described the power transfer as a step toward Iraq recovering full sovereignty and an end to the US-led occupation.

It called on Iraqis to “close ranks to put an end to the bloodshed and to draft a constitution to protect (people’s) rights whatever their (religious) denomination or political affiliation.”

But the region’s press cautiously welcomed the handover. The Saudi daily Al-Riyadh questioned how far “real authority is in the hands of the Americans” while the Iraqi state and its authorities are merely “a screen”.

“The Americans want to prove that they came as liberators and not occupiers. The situation forced them to give back authority... to assure legal cover and international support,” it said, adding that the United States had “invaded Iraq under doubtful pretexts.”

The Al-Watan newspaper, meanwhile, said the handover was just a show in the absence of a legitimate Iraqi government and president. Similar suspicions were also voiced in other regional newspapers.

“The transfer (of power) does not mean that the Americans will hastily leave Iraq,” the Al-Khaleej newspaper said in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), speaking of Washington’s “false pretexts to justify occupying the country.”