US overseer of Iraq Paul Bremer Sunday condemned the suicide car bombing that rocked the coalition center in Baghdad and killed up to 30 people, while firmly insisted on the original power transfer plan. 

"Today's terrorist bombing in Baghdad, which killed at least 16 Iraqi citizens, is an outrage -- another clear indication of the murderous and cynical intent of terrorists to undermine freedom, democracy and progress in Iraq," Bremer said in a statement published on the coalition's official website.

US military confirmed that 16 Iraqis and two foreign employees working for the US Defense Department were killed and 28 others, including two US soldiers and four US contractors, were injured.

However, a witness from inside of the coalition told Xinhua that up to 30 people were dead and 57 others were wounded.

In the statement, Bremer mourned the "tragic and excusable loss of life," assuring that the attackers "will not succeed."

The de facto ruler of Iraq said the attack, which took place at the height of rush hour in Baghdad, was "clearly timed to claim the maximum possible number of innocent victims" and the innocent people were once again compromised.

Despite the attack, which was apparently devised to affect the process of returning sovereignty to Iraqis, Bremer insisted that the original plan to hand over the remaining authority to a transitional Iraqi government in July "remains unchanged."

Bremer is currently in New York for a meeting with Iraqi officials and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday.

The US and Iraqi officials had counted much on the meeting to solve a looming dispute between different parties and ethnic sections of the war-torn country.

The US-sponsored plan, according to which the occupational authority will transfer sovereignty to an indirectly-elected transitional government by June, has undergone a major challenge from the country's majority Shiite Muslims.

Iraqi supreme Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had expressed his reservation over the selection by provincial caucuses of a council due to install the transitional government.

The most influential Iraqi Shiite leader favored a general, direct election ahead of the power handover, an idea supported by many Iraqi Shiites who had marched in streets to show their solidarity with Sistani and threatened to use force against dissidents. 

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2004)