SOFA negotiations: Negroponte bypasses Maliki

First it is inter­est­ing to read that Don­ald Rums­feld among the Amer­i­can del­e­ga­tion vis­its Sulaimaniya as reported on Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

The Amer­i­can source refused to reveal fur­ther details about the visit and the news­pa­per said: “it is unknown if the Amer­i­cans del­e­ga­tion will visit Bagh­dad or not”.

Con­trary to what Al-Hakim’s TV chan­nel report that Negro­ponte headed to Sulaimaniya to dis­cuss Kirkuk cri­sis and the secu­rity progress. Aswat Al-Iraq report quotes Kur­dish spokesman say­ing that the visit related to SOFA negotiations.

Strange is that Negro­ponte wants to dis­cuss the secu­rity agree­ment with the Kurds and not with Al-Maliki who announced few days ago that he will observe the nego­ti­a­tions by him­self or even to meet the nego­ti­a­tion team.

Try­ing to bypass Al-Maliki and the agree­ment? Iraqi MP AL-Najafi told Iraqpa:

The rea­son behind Negroponte’s visit is more pres­sure on the Iraqi gov­ern­ment in order to sign the agree­ment, espe­cially it comes days after state­ment made by Tal­a­bani on the pos­si­bil­ity of lift­ing of pro­tec­tion for the Iraqi deposits in U.S. banks, about 50 bil­lion dollar.

Al-Najafi state­ment agreed by Al-Sharqiya TV news head­line say­ing: “Negro­ponte and Crocker put the final touches of SOFA with Tal­a­bani and Barzani.