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WORLD / Middle East
Iraqi leader talks security in Iran
(AP)
Updated: 2007-08-09 06:43
TEHRAN, Iran - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed to Iran on
Wednesday for greater cooperation in easing his country's violence, even
as the United States has stepped up accusations that Tehran is arming
Iraqi Shiite militants.
Al-Maliki's Shiite-led government is closely tied to predominantly Shiite
Iran and has been reluctant to openly embrace the U.S. claims against
Tehran.
Instead, Baghdad has been struggling to strike a balance between the
bitter rivals, the two countries with the largest sway over Iraq. The
Iraqi prime minister's visit to Tehran came two days after U.S. and
Iranian experts held talks in Baghdad on improving Iraq's security.
Iraqi officials would not say if al-Maliki, on his second trip to Tehran
in the past year, would directly press Iran on the U.S. accusations
during his talks with Iranian leaders.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the visit aimed to boost
agreements making Iran "a positive base" in support of Iraq.
Al-Maliki and Iraqi officials gave few details on what sort of security
cooperation they were seeking from Iran during his visit, expected to
last three days. The trip also aimed to tighten already growing economic
ties between the two countries.
"We want to promote economic ties and other ties that contribute to
combating terrorism and its challenges," al-Maliki told The Associated
Press on the plane to Iran.
Al-Maliki later met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The two leaders
walked into an ornate meeting room holding hands, then shook for the
cameras before beginning their talks. Several other Iraqi and Iranian
officials also attended the closed meeting.
Al-Maliki also was to meet later in his trip with Iranian supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The visit comes at a time when the U.S. military is increasing its
accusations that Iran is fueling Iraq's violence. Lt. Gen. Raymond
Odierno, the U.S. second-in-command, said Sunday that Iranian-armed
Shiite militiamen were behind 73 percent of the attacks that killed and
wounded U.S. troops in Baghdad in July, nearly double the figure six
months earlier.
Iran has denied arming or financing Shiite militias. Al-Maliki's
government has said only that it does not "rule out" Iranian involvement.
During his visit, al-Maliki met with Iranian Vice President Parviz
Davoodi and "asked Iran for real security cooperation," an al-Maliki aide
said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to
speak to the media.
Davoodi told al-Maliki that "Iran has been always paying attention to
providing and improving security in Iraq," according to the Iranian state
news agency IRNA.
Davoodi also promised Tehran's "support for a strong and cohesive
coalition" government in Iraq, as well as backing for al-Maliki
personally, the al-Maliki aide said. But such Iranian backing would
likely only further alienate Iraq's Sunni Arab politicians.
Sunni Arab parties have fled al-Maliki's coalition in recent days -
either dropping out of the government or boycotting his Cabinet - in a
blow to U.S. efforts to get them to work together on political reform.
Iraq's Sunni Arab minority are also deeply suspicious of the Shiite and
Kurdish leadership's close ties with Iran - as are mainly Sunni Arab
governments in the region.
In Syria, meanwhile, officials from Iraq and its neighbors, including
Iran, held a conference Wednesday on improving Iraq's security. Iraq's
Deputy Foreign Minister Labib Abbawi pressed countries to do more to stop
the infiltration of fighters and weapons over their borders into Iraq.
Syria has been the target of frequent complaints from the U.S. and Iraq
that it is not doing enough to stop fighters and weapons from reaching
Iraq. The al-Maliki aide said the Iraqi prime minister was hoping to
visit Syria in the coming days for security talks.
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