Muslim meeting urges U.S. troops to leave Iraq

By Muklis Ali

BOGOR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Around 20 Muslim clerics from around the world called on Wednesday for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but no clerics from the war-shattered country made it to the meeting in Indonesia.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hosted the gathering aimed at encouraging reconciliation in Iraq as part of efforts to see Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, take a bigger role in global issues and in particular in the Middle East.

Clerics from countries including Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and Malaysia attended, but with no clerics from Iraq there will be doubts over how much influence the initiative is likely to have.

"The conference urged the withdrawal of foreign coalition forces led by the U.S. in a timely, orderly and peaceful manner," the meeting's closing statement, which was in Arabic, said.

Hasyim Muzadi, a cleric who leads Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama, admitted the "the road ahead is long".

"This international conference is only at a mapping stage in which there was a collective will. It is still useful because we came to the same vision," he told a closing news conference in the colonial-style white-painted presidential palace in Bogor.

"The second step is how we consult significant parties that have roles in reducing tension," said Muzadi, who described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as "the biggest aggression against a nation" this century.

Yudhoyono said in a speech at the opening of the conference on Tuesday that Muslim nations should ultimately replace U.S.-led forces in Iraq after a period of national reconciliation.