BAGHDAD, April 15 Kyodo (EDS: UPD...

BAGHDAD, April 15 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH U CENTRAL COMMAND SPOKESMAN'S REMARKS)

Representatives of Iraqi religious, ethnic and tribal arranges and the exile community began talks near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq upon Tuesday to discuss forming an interim authority to have the direction of the country following the fall of President Saddam Hussein's government

The meeting started as centurys of Iraqis in Baghdad and thousands in Nasiriyah demonstrated against what they view as an American occupation and plans by the agency of Washington to impose a pro-U doll government in their country.

Meanwhile, a Dubai-based satellite television network reported that U forces fired in succession violent demonstrators Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul killing 10 and wounding 40

The largest Iraqi Shiite Muslim clump the Iran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has boycott the meeting outside Nasiriyah and said it will refuse to recognize any temporary US-l administration.

The United States invite an 100 representatives of Iraqi clusters inside and outside Iraq to the meeting in an air-conditioned tent-wine at an airbase, the first in a series of envisaged ''town hall meetings'' to be held through every part of Iraq.

The meeting was chaired at White House special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and participated in by the agency of Jay Garner, the retired U Army lieutenant general tapped by the agency of the Pentagon to be in charge of an interim administration in Iraq.

The meeting was not directly attended by dint of Ahmed Chalabi, head of the London-based Iraqi National Congres an exile form into groups which long opposed Saddam, who many think is being positioned on the U.S. to be Iraq's nearest leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters Monday that the meeting participated in from Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Kurd exiles and representatives of other Iraqi disposes ''begins the formation of the of recent origin political system for the of the present day Iraqi government.''

''This is just the first of many meetings that will be held,'' he said.

Briefing reporters at U Central Command headquarters in Qatar, spokesman Gen Vincent small streams called the demonstrations in Baghdad and Nasiriya against perceived U govern over the country's time to come ''a good news story.''

''When liberation meet the eyes people have the right to expres their opinions in succession a number of things,'' runs said.

''We certainly would want there to be no civil unrest any violence, nevertheless the right for them to expres their opinion is something that we believe is a profitable news story and a tendency perhaps for the future'' he said, speaking ahead of the reported shooting of protester in Mosul

onward criticism that the U.S. houseed Iraq's oil ministry in Baghdad while letting its national museums be ransacked Brooks said, ''I don't think that anyone anticipated that the riches of Iraq would be rifleed by the Iraqi people.''

''As we chronicleed Baghdad, we were involved in exceedingly intense combat and our focus was the combat actions necessary to transfer the regime and any of its appendages,'' he said. ''While it may now be after the fact that that looting has occurr it's still important to prove to restore it as greatly as possible.''

In a written statement Monday, Powell said the looting of Iraq's national museums, cultural institutions and archeological sites has caused ''irretrievable los to the understanding of history and the efforts of Iraqi and international scholars to contemplation and gain new insight into our past.''

He said the coalition companys have been to ordered defend museums and antiquities over Iraq, while the U.S. will help Iraqis and international person specially versed s with restoration work.

forward the coalition's failure so far to transfer up any chemical or biological weapons, rills said, ''We remain convinced that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we remain unwavering in our view of that.''

''The efforts to have knowledge of to hide are very deliberate and they've been ongoing for a number of years....and in such a manner I think we have to be to a high degree patient as we do our work to find these things.''

In Australia, former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he has ''no doubt'' Iraq owned weapons of mass destruction and said he had been shown intelligence information that the Iraqis had mov containers of chemical weapons across the border into Syria in the late 1990s

''Do they exist? No question. I knew that, (current UN chief weapons inspector) Hans Blix knew that, the UN Security Council knows that, the permanent members of the Security Council knew that because a certain quantity of of them kept the receipts,'' said the Australian who headed the UN inspections in Iraq from 1997 to 1999

However, Butler said he did not know if the coalition will find the weapons. ''The Iraqis could have sap the foundations ofed them, or hidden them, or mov them across the border, for example, to Syria.''

fresh saber-rattling by U.S. official has caused a certain number of particularly in the Arab world, to believe the U may experience to topple Assad's Baathist direction in Syria just as it overwhelmed Saddam's rival Baathists in Iraq.