PM: NZ troops in Iraq to come home in Sep.

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, April 02, 2004

PM: NZ troops in Iraq to come home in Sep.

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New Zealand troops helping in the rebuilding of Iraq will come home in September, but New Zealand may then look at further ways of helping the country's return to full sovereignty, Prime Minister Helen Clark said Friday.

Clark make the remark following a meeting with Australian opposition leader Mark Latham in Auckland, during which the two Labour leaders discussed Iraq briefly, New Zealand Press Association reported Friday.

New Zealand has a small team of about 60 army engineers in Iraqrepairing buildings and infrastructure, and has given humanitarianaid to Iraq.

Latham and Australian Prime Minister John Howard had been at loggerheads this week over Latham's promise that an Australian Labor Government would bring Australian troops home by Christmas.

Clark said setting a timetable to bring troops home depended onwhat job they had been sent to Iraq to do.

"In the case of New Zealand, with the commitments we have made to the international effort against terrorism and the reconstruction of Iraq, we have tended to take a tranche of decisions which have a time period on them.

Latham said the New Zealand decision not to send combat troops to Iraq was in line with the Australian Labour Party policy.

"If Labour had been in government in Australia we wouldn't havehad troops in Iraq in the first place," he said.

Clark said she and Latham discussed a range of issues in the meeting, including building the relationship between the two countries and a regular exchange of back bench MPs.

Source: Xinhua

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