Thousands of followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets of Baghdad yesterday to demonstrate against a pact that would allow US forces to stay in Iraq for three more years.


Iraq's foreign minister said a draft of the agreement hammered out after months of negotiations was now final. Parliament would be given a chance to vote for or against it.


At the demonstration, a cleric read out what he described as a letter from Sadr calling on parliament to vote down the pact.