The president of Iraq?s US-backed Iraqi Provisional Governing Council said yesterday elections would take place next year, and said setting a timetable for US-led troops to withdraw was an issue for Iraqis alone.

Iyad Allawi, the new head of the council under its rotating leadership, when asked by reporters for a date when elections would take place, answered: ?Definitely 2004?.

Allawi had just ended a news conference on the eve of a Muslim summit in Malaysia. Asked whether the foreign ministers from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference had discussed drawing up a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops, Allawi politely answered that other Muslim governments could not set the agenda that was for Iraqis alone to decide.

?We welcome suggestions from brothers and other countries but the question of setting timetables is an Iraqi issue in the first place and is subject to decisions of the Governing Council,? he said.

?We are willing to listen to advice but we do not accept from anyone else other than Iraqis to have imposed on us the nature of timetabling the next agenda for Iraq.?

The Iraqi delegation is likely to ask Muslim leaders to delay endorsing a resolution on Iraq, when their summit opens today.

The council?s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the news conference that the 57-member OIC grouping should be patient and wait until a United Nations Security Council vote on Iraq takes place.

The United States has called for a UN vote later yesterday over its resolution to approve the occupation forces in Iraq and reconstruction plans.

The draft OIC resolution, drawn up by foreign ministers in talks ahead of the summit, called for a central role for the United Nations in Iraq, and for the US-led occupying forces to leave as soon as possible.

This is at odds with the US resolution in the United Nations, which foresees a supportive role for the world body and a UN peacekeeping force being kept under US command. ?We want to postpone the OIC resolution,? Zebari said. ?The resolution was initially submitted by a delegation of Iraq and there?s a high possibility that tomorrow at the summit meeting our delegates might request to postpone a decision on that resolution,? he said, adding that a delay was needed because of ?changing circumstances, especially at the Security Council?.