Rice fails to clinch firm Arab commitments on Iraq
KUWAIT CITY (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held closed-door talks in Kuwait late Monday as she intensified efforts to persuade Sunni-led Arab allies to back Iraq's Shiite leadership.
Rice failed to clinch any firm Arab pledges on debt relief or diplomatic presence at talks in Bahrain earlier on Monday but took her campaign to Kuwait for a meeting Tuesday with Iraq, Arab states, Turkey, Iran and world powers.
Speaking after a meeting in Bahrain with counterparts from six Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, Rice said the talks covered relieving Iraq debt and sending ambassadors to the war-torn nation.
But she did not report any decision on either score.
"I do believe it's a process which will move forward," Rice told reporters after the meeting, which came one day after she made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
"A number of countries around the table talked about their desire to have permanent representatives" in Baghdad, she said.
"The terms of debt relief have long been known. It's just a matter of getting the negotiations done," Rice added.
Gulf states, especially OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, agreed several years ago to forgive a substantial part of Iraqi debt, estimated to total tens of billions of dollars. Iraq wants this to be translated into action.
A US official who spoke to reporters on the flight to Kuwait, where Rice was to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki later Monday, confirmed that Arab diplomats made "no formal commitments" on sending ambassadors to Baghdad.
But they showed "more disposition to look at this," he said, requesting anonymity.
There was no immediate confirmation Rice met with Maliki.
Rice said she and the Arab ministers agreed that Iraq should become a "regular participant" in the 6+2+1 meetings that have brought together the six oil-rich Gulf Arab states, plus Jordan, Egypt and the United States four times since January 2007.
"I think that's a very good step forward for the reintegration of Iraq into regional affairs," she said at a joint news conference with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad al-Khalifa.
Rice sought to persuade her counterparts from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as those of Egypt and Jordan, that Iraq's Shiite-led government was now fighting for national interests, rather than sectarian ones, after it took on Shiite militias allegedly armed by Iran.
"I think adjustments are going to have to be made in the way Iraq's neighbours think about it," Rice said in Baghdad, claiming that the Maliki government was now behaving in "a non-sectarian fashion."
Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Iraq's Sunni leader Saddam Hussein, its Arab neighbours have been wary not only about violence there but also about backing a government tilted toward non-Arab Shiite Iran.
Rice said she has no plans to meet in Kuwait with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki of Iran, which she accuses of contradicting its stated aim of stabilising Iraq.
Bahrain's foreign minister said the Arab diplomats had questions about "the ambiguity of the political picture" in Iraq, but received a "very good explanation" from Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Zebari told reporters he presented to his Arab counterparts "a series of specific demands about ways of energising the Arab role in Iraq," and a request to waive debts to some of these countries totalling around 40 billion dollars.
Zebari said Iraq has given Arab countries "security guarantees" and allocated premises for their future embassies in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah said on Sunday that the emirate will soon send an ambassador to Baghdad and was looking for a building within the high security Green Zone.
