The Foreign Minister to Iraq, Hoshyar Zebari, said that a security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, still in negotiations, would have U.S. troops out of Iraq in three years and bar them from moving outside their bases unilaterally beginning in 2009.

The comments by the foreign minister, first made to the Times of London, confirm what two Iraqi officials told McClatchy Newspapers last week. Zebari said by phone Thursday that the dates would still be based on conditions in Iraq.

If the U.S. has agreed to set a specific date for the end of American operations in Iraqi cities and the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces it marks a major turnaround for the Bush administration, which until last month had refused to discuss a timetable for withdrawal.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and other Iraqi officials were insistent that a date of some sort needed to be set. During Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's visit to Iraq last month, Maliki's national security adviser said that Iraqi officials hoped that U.S. combat troops would be gone by the end of 2010.

Iraqi and American officials had planned to come to a security agreement by the end of July which would replace a United Nations mandate that allows the American-led coaltion forces to occupy Iraq. So far no agreement has been made although both Iraqi and U.S. officials have been saying the deal is close for weeks.

Once negotiations are complete the agreement must still pass the executive council, the political and national security committee and finally the parliament.

Maliki has already voiced concerns over the issue of immunity. Zebari said that Americans and contractors on their bases would come under American law but outside their bases they would be referred to both Iraqi and U.S. military commands.