US rejects Putin call for troop pullout timetable

WASHINGTON, Friday (AFP,Reuters) - The United States rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to set a timetable for pulling its troops out of Iraq and withheld comment on his proposal for an international conference.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack echoed President George W. Bush's refusal to lay out a calendar for withdrawing the 138,000 American troops battling an insurgency 28 months after the removal of Saddam Hussein.

"As Iraqis stand up their capabilities, we and the multinational forces will be able to stand down," McCormack stated. "We have a robust training program for Iraqi police and security forces that's progressing under the leadership of General (David) Petraeus working very closely with the Iraqis."

Putin told a reporters after meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah earlier Thursday that "we deem it necessary to work out a schedule for the staged withdrawal of foreign troops" in Iraq.

"Many Iraqis perceive these forces as occupying forces, and this is a reality that should be taken into account," the Russian leader said.

He also said an international conference this year "would give a new impulse to the normalization of the situation" in the war-battered country.

But McCormack withheld a response, saying, "I haven't seen President Putin's comments so I haven't had a chance to take a look at them and analyze what our thoughts on that might be."

The spokesman added that a Russian delegation already attended an international conference on Iraqi reconstruction that was held in Brussels on June 22.

Meanwhile U.S., British and U.N. diplomats pressed Iraqi leaders in make-or-break negotiations over a constitution determined to see a draft of the document finalised by the new Aug. 22 deadline.

Senior negotiators from the Kurdish and Shi'ite communities hinted an agreement might be reached days before Monday's target date, but Sunni Arabs, the third major party to the contested talks, played down that possibility.

In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades on a mosque where the governor of the province was meeting senior Sunni Muslim clerics and several people were wounded, witnesses said.

North of Baghdad, four U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, raising the U.S. death toll to more than 1,850 since the war in Iraq began. Insurgents appear to have developed more powerful bombs able to pierce newly armoured U.S. vehicles.

Talks on the constitution, which broke down before the previous deadline on Monday, prompting an extraordinary session of parliament to amend the law and allow a week longer, remained divided over three fundamental issues - federalism, the role of Islam and the distribution of revenue from natural resources.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the drafting committee, said talks were progressing and he expected an agreement to be reached by Aug. 22, though he said he was not certain it would be signed by minority Sunni Arabs.

"I think there will be some sort of agreement by the deadline but the question mark is the Sunni Arabs," he said. "Everyone wants them to be involved, but I'm not sure that they will come around. I'm not sure it will include them."

Saleh al-Mutlak, one of the main Sunni Arab negotiators, said he and others from his camp had met the British and U.S. ambassadors to discuss the issue of federalism and would sit down with the Shi'ites and Kurds to haggle further. "There are several points disagreed on, and I expect we will find a compromise," Mutlak told Reuters.

At least two negotiators, from the Kurdish and Shi'ite communities, said it might be possible to produce a finalised document in the next couple of days, but Mutlaq and others were not convinced.