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Rice flies to Iraq
18/12/2007 14:11 - (SA)
Kirkuk - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Tuesday to urge Iraqi leaders to speed up national reconciliation to secure recent military gains that have sharply curbed violence.
Making her eighth visit as secretary of state to the
oil-producing country, Rice
planned to highlight progress on reducing violence and shoring
up the economy.
"What is missing here, and what is absolutely necessary over
the long term to secure all of this, is political progress,"
State Department Iraq co-ordinator David Satterfield told
reporters travelling with Rice. "They (have) got to move."
Attacks in Iraq are down 60% since June, but Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government, paralysed by
infighting, has made little headway in passing laws seen as
vital to reconciling the country's sects and ethnic groups.
Rice's visit to the northern city of Kirkuk came hours after
300 Turkish troops crossed into Kurdish territory in northern
Iraq, according to a senior Iraqi military source. The troops
moved two to three kilometres deeper into Iraq on Tuesday morning, the source said.
The troops were lightly armed and had moved into the Gali
Rash area, a mountainous district near the border, but there
were no reports of clashes, the source said. Turkey says it has
a right to use military force to combat Kurdish separatist
rebels based in northern Iraq.
Deep differences and mutual mistrust
Visiting Iraq in February, Rice urged Iraqi leaders to use
any lull in violence to push ahead with reconciliation, warning
that US patience would not last forever. But the politicians
have struggled to overcome deep differences and mutual mistrust.
Satterfield said she would meet Iraqi leaders in Baghdad to
stress the need for political reconciliation.
"She is saying, look, see what's been done ... on security,
on economics. You guys have got to catch up ... to solidify and
to stabilise those other gains," he said.
Kirkuk crisis
Rice began her trip in Kirkuk, a mixed city of Kurds, Arabs
and Turkmen 250km north of Baghdad. The city is
seen as the next potential powderkeg in Iraq, with Kurdish
nationalists demanding it be included in their largely
autonomous region.
Rice met members of the local provincial council, whose work
has been impeded because of boycotts by two major ethnic groups.
Sunni Arab representatives recently ended their boycott and
Turkmen "are moving ever more steadily towards participation",
Satterfield said.
Seated at a table with about two dozen representatives of
the council, Rice told them in opening remarks: "I have always
looked forward to coming to Kirkuk. It is an important
province for the future of Iraq, for a democratic Iraq, an Iraq
that can be for all people."
Historical capital
A clause in Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum to
be held there to determine whether the area joins a Kurdish
autonomous region in the north, but it has been delayed because
of deep divisions among Arabs and Kurds.
Iraq' minority Kurds, who control the largely autonomous
Kurdistan region, see Kirkuk as their historical capital, but
Arabs encouraged to move there under Saddam Hussein fear being
pushed out if the referendum takes place.
Rice's deputy, John Negroponte, said earlier this month that
it would be impossible to hold a planned poll this year to
decide the city's status.
The referendum had been due to take place by December 31, but
the Baghdad government has made no preparations amid fears that
the poll could trigger a new wave of violence in Iraq if it goes
ahead over the objections of Arabs and Turkmen.
Rice travelled to Iraq after attending a meeting of the
Quartet of Middle East peace mediators and a Palestinian donors'
conference in Paris following the Annapolis meeting on November 27
that relaunched the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
- Reuters
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