Iran backs Iraqi PM but wants US troops out

From Khaleejtimes:

TEHERAN - Iran on Thursday gave visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki its full support for restoring security in Iraq but told him a pullout of US forces was the only way to end the violence.

The embattled Maliki held two days of talks with Iranian leaders including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vice President Parviz Davoudi on his visit to a country blamed by the United States for much of the bloodshed in Iraq.

However Iran emphatically rejects these claims and the Shiite prime minister’s visit appeared to emphasise the expansion of the ties between the two sides since the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

“Iran and Iraq both have heavy responsibilities to bring about peace and security in the region,” Ahmadinejad told Maliki after a meeting late on Wednesday, state media reported.

“The situation in the region today, including Iraq, is very sensitive. Teheran considers the future of the region to be dependent on the victory in Iraq,” he added.

But Davoudi also warned that security in Iraq depended on an immediate withdrawal of US forces, a move Iraqi officials have said would be premature.

“It is our belief that the exit of the occupying forces would provide security and stability in Iraq,” Davoudi said.

“Bringing about security and calm in Iraq is dependent on two factors -- the exit of the occupiers and their non-inteference in Iraq and also the power of the government of Mr Maliki,” he added.

State television said Maliki left Teheran on Thursday but it was not clear where he was headed.

There was no indication he had held a meeting with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Maliki’s talks appeared to confirm the increasingly warm relations that have emerged between majority Shiite Iraq and overwhelmingly Shiite Iran following the fall of Saddam’s Sunni-dominated regime.

According to the state-run IRNA news agency, Maliki thanked Iran for its “positive and constructive” work in “providing security and fighting terrorism in Iraq.”

The United States however accuses Iran backing Shiite militias and supplies weapons capable of penetrating the armour of US military vehicles. The charges are vehemently denied by Iran.

In a highly symbolic move, Maliki met the families of seven Iranian officials arrested in Iraq by US forces on accusations of being members of an elite Revolutionary Guards force on a mission to stir trouble.

Iran insists the men were diplomats and is livid that the United States has shown no sign of releasing them.

“The Iraqi government will do all it can to release these people,” Maliki said, expressing optimism that the officials would be released, state broadcasting said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki also held talks that reviewed the progress of landmark talks between Iran and its arch foe the United States on Iraq’s security in Baghdad.

Maliki has been a vocal supporter of the talks, although the two rounds of discussions between the two countries’ envoys to Iraq had been marked by acrimonious disagreements over who was to blame for the bloodshed.

Like many other Iraqi Shiite leaders, Maliki lived in Iran during the 1980s when Baghdad was at war with Teheran to escape persecution of his Dawa party by Saddam’s regime.

Maliki made his first official trip to Iran in September 2006, while the first visit by an Iraqi premier since the fall of Saddam was made by Maliki’s predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, in July 2005.

Iran and Iraq waged a war between 1980 and 1988 in which around one million people died but ties have warmed considerably since the fall of Saddam.

Maliki’s warm welcome in Teheran contrasted with the political crisis he faces at home which has seen six Sunni members of his cabinet resign and the prime minister in turn accuse them of lacking responsibility