Iraq eyes Beijing ban reversal

Iraq has urged the International Olympic Committee to overturn its ban on the country's participation in the Beijing Games and hopes to meet with the body soon, Iraq's sports minister said yesterday.

Iraqi athletes said they were devastated by news last week that the IOC had confirmed the country's disqualification from the Olympics for what it considered "political interference" in Iraq's National Olympic Committee (NOC).

"The Iraqi government is attempting to convince the IOC to change its stand regarding the suspension. The prime minister has an initiative and hopefully very soon there will be a meeting with the IOC," Iraq's Youth and Sports Minister Jasem Mohammed Jaafar told Reuters.

Iraq's government said it disbanded the NOC in May because it lacked a quorum and had failed to hold new elections. The IOC gave Iraq a deadline to reinstate the body but the government has not backed down.

Iraq's rowers blasted officials in Baghdad for the ban, but said they would continue to "train to the last breath" in the hope it would be overturned.

"I blame the Iraqi government. It interfered in the NOC, and it's not an Iraqi ministry. It had no right," Haider Nauzad, one of Iraq's two-man Olympic rowing team, said.