Bush, Maliki to meet on Iraq violence
Source: Reuters
(Refiles with new headline) (Updates throughout with Bush-Maliki meeting, changes byline, previous BAGHDAD) By Matt Spetalnick ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Nov 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan next week amid rising sectarian violence in Iraq and after Iran-Iraq summit in Tehran. The meeting will come on the heels of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's visit to Tehran this weekend for a summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In Baghdad on Tuesday, Iraq and Syria restored diplomatic relations after a 24-year rift, a move Iraq hopes can help stem what it says is Syrian support for militants and encourage other Arab states to rally to its aid. The U.S. president will fly to Amman after the NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, for talks on Nov. 29-30 with the Iraqi leader to focus on "building security and stability in Iraq," said White House spokesman Tony Snow on Tuesday. "We will focus our discussions on current developments in Iraq, progress made to date in the deliberations of a high level joint committee on transferring security responsibility and the role of the region in supporting Iraq," Snow said, reading from a joint U.S.-Iraqi statement as Bush flew back to Washington from a trip to Asia. The chaos in Iraq has put mounting pressure on both Bush and Maliki to try to find a way to stem the violence. U.S. discontent over the handling of the Iraq war was a major reason voters ousted Bush's Republicans from power in Congress in the Nov. 7 elections. Allies have been urging Bush to talk about Iraq to his adversaries Iran and Syria, but Washington has so far reacted warily to that idea. White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said on Tuesday the administration had no objection to warmer relations among Iraq, Syria and Iran. Washington and Iraqi leaders accuse Iran of backing militants pushing Iraq into all-out civil war. Next month Bush is expected to receive recommendations on Iraq from a bipartisan Iraq Study Group. The Pentagon is conducting its own review of the approach on Iraq. Hadley said Bush will want to hear from Maliki, "who's obviously been developing his own ideas on the way forward." DIPLOMACY In Baghdad earlier on Tuesday, Syria's foreign minister, on a first such visit since U.S. troops overthrew Saddam Hussein, signed the diplomatic accord. Sectarian passions boiled in Iraq's parliament amid fears it may be too late for diplomacy to reverse a slide into anarchy. "We have agreed to walk together in measured and quiet steps," said Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. Like his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moualem, he stressed the visit was not the result of U.S. pressure: "(It) sends an important message to Arab nations that we are masters of our own decisions ... and did not happen due to an outside will." Moualem, who had called for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces, agreed they would stay until Iraq no longer wanted them. Iraq ordered Syrian diplomats out in 1980. Then ruled by rival wings of the Baath Party, the two cut all ties in 1982, when Syria sided with Tehran during Saddam's long war with Iran. The bloodshed in Iraq shows no sign of abating. Iraqi officials said three people were killed , including a baby, in a U.S. air strike on a Shi'ite stronghold in Baghdad during a raid that seized members of a group suspected of links to the abduction last month of an Iraqi-born U.S. soldier. Saying the United States appeared to be "trapped in Iraq," unable either to stay or go, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Iran and Syria to be "part of the solution." Iran had invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the talks in Tehran, but a senior Iraqi government official told Reuters Assad was unlikely to show up. On a day when some Lebanese leaders accused Damascus of the killing of anti-Syrian Lebanese Christian leader Pierre Gemayel, a U.S. national security spokesman said "Syria needs to now demonstrate that it is committed to constructive engagement" in Iraq. Damascus condemned the murder of Gemayel. Zebari said: "The issue with Syria has been one of political will. During this visit they expressed the will to cooperate." (Additional reporting by by Aseel Kami, Mussab Al-Khairalla and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad and Edmund Blair in Tehran)
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