AFP, LONDON: Flush with the successful voting in Sunday's elections, Iraq's interim interior minister said US and British troops would not be needed anymore in as soon as 18 months from now.
“I think we will not need the foreign forces in this country within 18 months,” interim interior minister Falah al-Nakib told Britain's Channel 4 television.
“I think we will be able to depend on ourselves, if everything goes in the right direction,” he said.
US President George W. Bush on Sunday praised Iraqi voters and security forces for keeping the vote relatively smooth, but his administration again refused to provide a timetable for the withdrawal of some 150,000 US troops.
The UN Security Council has set the end of 2005 as the target date for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
