Pakistan considers sending troops to Iraq

updated 4:03 a.m. ET April 14, 2004

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan is considering a U.S. request to send troops to Iraq to protect a U.N. mission, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush said he hoped to broaden international participation in Iraq.

Bush said he would like to have a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq that he said would "help other nations to decide to participate" in the reconstruction of the war-torn country.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror, has previously declined to contribute troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq saying it would provide them only under U.N. or international command.

"We are studying this request," Kahn said about the appeal, but declined to say when a decision was expected.

"Unlike in the past, the request this time is quite specific and it is for the protection of a future United Nations mission which would be established in Iraq," he said, but did not give further details.

It was not clear when the U.S. request was made.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Bush gave no details of the U.N. resolution he would seek.

But he said the United States would stick to a June 30 deadline for handing over political power to Iraqis. He said a U.N. envoy would help decide which Iraqis would be placed in charge.

The United Nations pulled its international staff out of Iraq when a suicide attack on its headquarters in August killed the top U.N. envoy and 19 other people. At least 100 people also were wounded in the unprecedented attack.

Since then, the world body has been reluctant to dispatch personnel to Iraq.

On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said no major teams would be sent "in the foreseeable future" because of the upsurge in violence in Iraq where dozens of people also have been kidnapped in recent days.

Three abducted Pakistani drivers were released Monday.

Pakistan is a member of the U.N. Security Council, but the country's powerful radical Islamic groups are against sending soldiers to Iraq.

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