LONDON: The United States is orchestrating secret contacts between Iraqi opposition factions with the aim of finding agreement on a new leadership to replace Saddam Hussein.

A grand opposition conference has been provisionally scheduled for May, and it is hoped to be held in Bonn, symbolically echoing the Bonn meeting that set up the Afghan interim government.

A May meeting would increase pressure on Baghdad just as the UN Security Council begins its six-monthly review of sanctions, which is widely expected to be the trigger for a confrontation between the US and Iraq.

London has become a hub of opposition contacts, especially those involving the so-called Group of Four: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Supreme Islamic Council for Revolution in Iraq and the Iraqi National Accord.

They have been meeting regularly and discreetly for several months, but in the past few weeks have intensified the pace to “almost daily hectic activity”, according to an insider.

In an attempt to create a united front they are making strenuous efforts to draw smaller opposition elements into the fold. Even the tiniest Kurdish factions - some with as few as 20-50 members - are being intensively wooed.

These efforts are beginning to bear fruit, according to Hamid al-Bayati of the Supreme Islamic Council. Fifteen groups, including representatives of Iraq’s Turkmen and Syrian-Christian minorities, helped to prepare a joint presentation to the Foreign Office minister Ben Bradshaw last week, he said.

The aim was not to form a new umbrella group to compete with the US-backed Iraqi National Congress but to develop contacts with opponents of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

“We are contacting military officers, leaders of tribes and others. We are also in constant contact with the State Department,” he added.

The meeting in Bonn may turn out to be the most crucial in the history of the Iraqi opposition, according to several observers of Iraqi politics.

Ostensibly, its purpose is to discuss the future of Iraq after President Saddam, but many expect that an alternative leadership will emerge from the talks.

Jockeying for position among by the Iraqis is likely to be overshadowed by rivalries in the US administration over who should succeed President Saddam. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.