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Visiting Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Sunday his government was going to stick to the January election timetable despite the unstable situation in the country, and called for the United Nations to help make the elections a success.
"We definitely are going to stick to the timetable of the elections in January next year... We are doing our best to ensure that we will meet the time of the elections. We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq," Allawi told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair after holding talks with him at Downing Street.
Allawi, who is expected to attend the UN General Assembly, also called upon the world body to "help us in providing whatever it takes to make the elections a success."
Iraq would like more UN involvement in the country's economic and political reconstruction process, Allawi said, stressing that it is important for Iraq to develop its own security forces.
On fighting terrorism in Iraq, Blair told reporters that "whatever the disagreements about the first conflict in Iraq to remove (former Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein), in this conflict now taking place in Iraq, this is the crucible in which the future of this global terrorism will be determined."
"And either it will succeed and this terrorism will grow, or we will succeed, the Iraqi people will succeed, and this global terrorism will be delivered a huge defeat," Blair said.
Blair, who has sent more than 9,000 troops to southern Iraq, also told reporters there were no calls for more troops to be sent to Iraq and British troops in Iraq did not want to stay in the country longer than necessary.
The talks between Blair and Allawi followed a week of intense violence in Iraq, which reportedly has taken more than 300 lives.
It also came amid growing concerns on whether Iraq would be able to hold planned elections in January as the country has seen unrelenting guerrilla violence and instability.
Allawi's trip to Britain also came as Britain and the United States are working to secure the release of Briton Kenneth Bigley and Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, who were seized last Thursday from a house in Baghdad.
(Xinhuan News Agency September 20, 2004)
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