Rice seeks debt relief, strengthened ties ahead of surprise Iraqi visit

Rice said she hoped a conference of Iraq's neighbors on Tuesday in Kuwait would lead to progress on debt relief by Arab nations, and that states such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain would meet their promises to open embassies in Baghdad. Â

Since the first two neighbors' meetings in Istanbul and Egypt last year, Rice said Iraq had passed some important laws and Iraq's army had tried to curb the militias.

"This meeting is going to have to take note of that," Rice told reporters before a refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland, on her way to Bahrain and Kuwait. "I think it is fair to say that Iraq’s neighbors could do more to live up to their obligations because I do believe the Iraqis are beginning to live up to theirs," she added.

In Iraq, Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday threatened an "open war" against the government unless it halted a crackdown by Iraqi and U.S. security forces on his followers. The specter of a full-scale uprising by Sadr raises the stakes in his confrontation with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

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DEBT RELIEF Â

Rice will press her point further in face-to-face talks with her Arab counterparts in both Bahrain on Monday and Kuwait on Tuesday.

In Bahrain, she will meet with the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan and Gulf oil states Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman. Rice said Iraq's top diplomat will also be there, the AFP reported.

"A number of people at this meeting will have done debt relief. Well, Iraq's neighbors ought to do that debt relief. The debt relief has come from the Paris Club, not from Iraq's neighbors," she was quoted as saying by Reuters.

About $66.5 billion of Iraq's debt has been forgiven, with the bulk by the Paris Club members, according to State Department estimates this month. Of the $56 to $80 billion of the estimated remaining debt, more than half is owed to Gulf countries, the department said.

Although the Bahrain talks will touch on Iraq, they will also cover the political crisis in Lebanon, the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, Afghanistan, Sudan and other issues, she said.

The larger conference in Kuwait will be attended by Iraq’s Arab and non-Arab neighbors Iran and Turkey, U.N. Security Council permanent members including the United States and other Group of Eight leading industrial nations.

 

DABBAGH'S CALL

Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, called on neighboring countries to forgive billions of dollars owed from loans and upgrade their diplomatic representation in Baghdad, AFP reported on Saturday.

"Russia forgave $12 billion of Iraqi debt. We have not seen similar moves from our neighbors," Dabbagh said.

 

"We must abandon the past and part of it is canceling Iraqi debt," he said, adding most of the debt stemmed from the former regime of Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.

 

 

RICE IN IRAQ

Arriving on an unannounced visit, Rice said she wanted to support what she called a new political "center" in Iraq that has backed Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's crackdown on Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.

Underscoring the threat of widening violence, the U.S. military said it killed 20 militiamen overnight in clashes in the cleric's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City. A military spokesman called it the capital's "hottest night" in weeks.

Rice, who went straight into a meeting with Maliki, arrived a day after Sadr threatened an uprising against the U.S.-backed government if it did not halt attacks on his followers.

Rice did not have any immediate comment on Sadr's threat. "The issue of Sadr is an internal Iraqi matter to resolve at this point. But clearly the prime minister has laid down some ground rules which any functioning democratic state would insist upon, having to do with arms belonging to the state, not in private hands," she said.

Maliki launched a crackdown on Sadr's followers late last month that has led to the worst fighting in Iraq in nearly a year at a time when the United States is bringing home extra troops sent under last year's "surge" strategy.

Photo: AP