New Spanish PM promises Iraq withdrawal

[Barrett808]

New Spanish PM promises Iraq withdrawal
Simon Jeffery and agencies
Monday March 15, 2004

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose socialist party yesterday won a sensational election victory, today vowed to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq.

The prime minister elect used his first full media interview since last night to affirm that he intended to follow through on what had become a key election promise.

"The Spanish troops in Iraq will come home," he told Cadena Ser radio.

Mr Zapatero's campaign pledge was to keep troops in Iraq until June 30 - as Madrid had previously pledged - and withdraw them if the US had not handed over power to the UN by that date.

He said today that no decision on the 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq would be taken until he was in power and had consulted widely, but insisted he did not intend for them to stay. He told Cadena Ser: "The war has been a disaster the occupation continues to be a disaster. It has only generated violence."

(more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1169726,00.html

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