Australia expels all Iraqi diplomats by end of this week

Australia yesterday asked all Iraqi diplomats to leave the country before the end of the current week.

In a statement, the Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said that he had given the Iraqi diplomats five days to leave the country, describing this step as a logic arrangement at a time Australia expressed readiness to take part in possible war against Iraq.

Simultaneously, the US President George Bush announced that the US asked several Iraqis to leave Washington after they were accused of having links with the Iraqi intelligence.