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'New Iraq' asks for support
22/04/2008 12:04 - (SA)
Kuwait City - Iraq, backed by the United States, urged its Sunni Arab neighbours on Tuesday to offer diplomatic and economic support to a "new Iraq" that promotes national unity and ends sectarian divisions.
In a speech apparently aimed at dispelling their suspicions, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a conference of Iraq's neighbours and world powers in Kuwait: "I am carrying the message of all constituents that Iraq has overcome its crisis and divisions and the will of its people has been united.
"Our hands are still extended to all who believe in building an Iraq in which religious, ethnic and party freedoms are respected," Maliki said.
"The new Iraq is not the Iraq of the past which instigated disputes and launched wars against other nations," he said.
At the same time, Maliki appealed to the Sunni-led Arab states to help stabilise Iraq by living up to pledges to forgive his country's debt, wiping clean war reparations, and reopening embassies in Baghdad.
"The bill of debt and compensation Iraq is paying is causing a heavy damage to our infrastructure and national economy," Maliki said.
"We are still waiting for implementing pledges and commitments made to waive loans and compensation," said the Iraqi premier.
'There had been pledges but they have not materialised'
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 Shi'ite Iran.
Maliki complained that decisions made at two previous conferences of foreign ministers have not been implemented, especially the reopening of embassies by Gulf Arab nations in his war-torn country.
"It is very difficult to find a reasonable explanation for not resuming diplomatic relations with Iraq at ambassador level. There had been pledges but they have not materialised," he said.
Since a surprise visit to Baghdad on Sunday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been urging Arab states in meetings in Bahrain and now in Kuwait City to throw their support behind a new "non-sectarian" Iraq.
The Secretary of State is urging the Arabs to seize a "moment of opportunity" arising from the military campaign Maliki launched last month against Shi'ite militias allegedly backed by Iran.
His crackdown stems from a "coalescing of a centre in Iraqi politics" where Sunnis, Kurds, and governing Shi'ites are now working together like never before, she said.
Rice is urging Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to follow through on pledges to send ambassadors back to Baghdad and reopen embassies there, though she came away with no firm commitments during talks with them in Bahrain on Monday.
Rice has said she has no plans to meet here with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki of Iran, which she accuses of contradicting its stated aim of stabilising Iraq by arming the militias.
- AFP
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