Baghdad will ask the UN to renew the mandate of US-led forces in Iraq for a final time until the end of 2008, Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said.
He said the mandate should be replaced by a new pact between Iraq and the US.
The Security Council has been renewing the troops' mandate annually since the US-led invasion into Iraq in 2003.
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Iraq-US talks
"The United States has promised that the multinational forces will stay under a UN mandate only until the end of 2008," Mr Maliki said in a televised address.
Mr Maliki said that Iraq had reached the stage where it did not need coalition forces, adding that the country should be allowed to become a "normal state".
Mr Maliki's remarks came shortly after he and US President George W Bush had agreed to hold formal talks next year about the future ties between the two nations, including the role of American troops.
The size and shape of the long-term US presence in Iraq would be a "key matter for negotiation," said Lt Gen Douglas Lute, White House deputy national security adviser.
There are currently more than 160,000 US troops in Iraq.
(BBC)
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