Rice pushes for reconciliation

2008-01-15 14:27

Baghdad - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Baghdad on Tuesday to see top Iraqi officials after Iraq's Parliament passed the first in a series of critical laws aimed at reconciling warring Iraqis.

Rice went straight into a meeting with Shi'ite Islamist Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki after arriving, a US embassy official said.

Washington wants Maliki's splintered government to match recent security gains with progress on political reconciliation between the majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

The two sides have fought a bitter sectarian conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Rice was due to hold a news conference with Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari later.

She had been with US President George W Bush on a Middle East tour before it was decided she should break away for a visit to Iraq while Bush went to Saudi Arabia, White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Riyadh.

"President Bush and Secretary Rice decided this would be a good opportunity for the secretary to go to Baghdad to build on progress made and to encourage additional political reconciliation and legislative action," Johndroe said.

Iraq's parliament voted on Saturday to let thousands of members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party return to government jobs, the first of a group of what Washington has called benchmark reconciliation laws to be passed.

The laws, which also include a revenue-sharing oil law, are designed to draw Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam but have since been marginalised, back into the political process and away from Iraq's bloody insurgency.

Levels of violence down

Bush has described passage of the law on former Baathists as an important step towards reconciliation.

Maliki's government fractured last year with the withdrawal of the main Sunni Arab bloc as well as ministers loyal to anti-US Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The stalled political progress came at a time when significant security improvements were being made after the US military poured an extra 30 000 US troops into Iraq. Levels of violence are now down by about 60% since June.

Bush, who was briefed in Kuwait by US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker, said on Saturday the new strategy had reversed a descent into mayhem.

He said security gains were allowing some US troops to return home. The military plans to withdraw more than 20 000 troops from Iraq by mid-year.

- Reuters