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The announcement came as Bush traveled to Arizona for a Republican fundraiser, The Washington Post reported. Officials said that Maliki and Bush talked Thursday in a video conference.

Iraq and the United States have been negotiating a new status of forces agreement. While the Bush administration had resisted any notion of timetables for the withdrawal of troops, Maliki had begun saying that a schedule must be part of a new agreement.

"In the area of security cooperation, the president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals", officials said in Friday's statement.

Scott Stanzel, a Bush spokesman, said that the agreement with Maliki is different from Democratic proposals on troop withdrawal.

"These are aspirational goals, not arbitrary timetables based on political expediency", Stanzel said.

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