Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
May 5, 2007
Pg. 12
Nations Manage to Find a Way Forward As U.S. Meets Briefly With Iran, Syria
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, May 4 -- Mutually suspicious and doubtful, Iraq's neighbors and benefactors nonetheless agreed here Friday on a shared vision for the beleaguered country's future and pledged to work together to help achieve it.
The Bush administration contributed by ending its long diplomatic isolation of Iran and Syria, both of which it accuses of backing violent forces in Iraq. Two senior administration officials had a brief and largely symbolic conversation with an Iranian official Friday morning, a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held bilateral talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem. Administration officials said they expected the contact, limited to Iraq issues, to continue if it brought results.
During a news briefing at the end of a conference of foreign ministers at this Egyptian resort, Rice pronounced the international gathering "extraordinary."
No one claimed that Iraq's severe problems or the growing sectarian tensions among the region's competing powers had been resolved.
In a final communique, government representatives from the region, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the Group of Eight industrialized nations pledged to support Iraqi democracy and sovereignty and condemned violence there. They said they would work to prevent the transit of fighters and weapons through their territories and would help Iraq strengthen its security forces.
In return, the Iraqi government promised to accelerate and expand political reforms to reconcile ethnic groups and religious factions, and to work to disband and disarm "all militias and illegally armed groups without exception."
Iraq made similar pledges in an agreement reached with a larger international group that met here Thursday to discuss political and economic reforms and forgiveness of Iraq's foreign debt.
"There was a lot of suspicion, a lot of mistrust," in several directions, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari acknowledged during a news conference. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, with Saudi Arabia in the lead, accused Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government of stalling on key reforms benefiting Iraq's Sunni minority.
"It is in my country's interest to see a reduction of this tension," Zebari said.
Signs of mistrust surfaced in speeches Friday. "Every day now in Iraq proves that a continuation of the current situation will lead to dangerous results, not only for Iraq but for its neighbors," said the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. "All of us should reject attempts" to make Iraq "an arena for competition between internal and regional powers or an area for terrorist and extremist operations."
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki repeated his government's call for the withdrawal of "foreign occupying forces" from Iraq and called the arrest by U.S. forces there of five Iranian officials a "brazen" violation of international law.
The Bush administration has accused Iran of training and arming Shiite militia groups.
The communique said a buildup of Iraqi defense forces will "pave the way for the conclusion of the mandate of the multi-national forces, whose presence will not be open-ended, and will terminate upon the request of and in accordance with timing to be agreed by the government of Iraq."
Rice said the reform agenda of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government "needs to be pursued urgently and it needs to be pursued to completion." A draft law to divide Iraq's oil revenue among regional groups is now available and it "should be passed . . . with dispatch," she said, along with revision of de-Baathification laws, a constitutional review, dismantling of militias and arrangements for provincial elections.
Rice's news conference was dominated by questions about her Thursday meeting with Moualem, and about Friday's encounter between Iranian officials and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and David M. Satterfield, Rice's chief coordinator for Iraq at the State Department. In the days leading up to the conference, the administration had decided to break the ice here with Syria and Iran in response to appeals from Maliki's government and critics at home.
Rice said she repeated to Moualem the U.S. concern about "foreign fighters," who are recruited by the group al-Qaeda in Iraq and pass through Syria, and asked for cooperation in stopping them. But she cautioned against reading too much into the meeting. "Let's take this one step at a time," she said. "I'm very glad we had the opportunity . . . but this was not about anything other than Iraq, and we will certainly see whether we can observe words being followed by deeds."
Crocker described the Friday morning meeting with Iran as a "pull-aside" on the margins of the conference. Reluctant to let the gathering pass without a face-to-face exchange between the United States and Iran, Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari arranged for the two U.S. officials and members of the Iranian delegation to literally bump into one another. Crocker later declined to characterize the conversation, which he said lasted about three minutes, but said it was limited to Iraq.
The Iranian foreign minister and Rice both attended a lunch hosted by Egypt on Thursday but had no direct exchange during a general conversation among foreign ministers.
The U.S. delegation anticipated a somewhat more direct exchange of pleasantries at a conference dinner Thursday night, but Mottaki showed up only briefly and then left before the meal was served. Iranian journalists later said he had been offended by the plunging neckline on the red dress of a Ukrainian violinist providing pre-dinner entertainment.
"Our officials can't look at things like this," said one Iranian reporter, noting that the Tehran government is in the midst of one of its periodic crackdowns on revealing female dress at home. Asked why he did not meet Rice, Mottaki said at a news conference, "There was no time, no appointment and no plans," the Reuters news service reported.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack cracked, "I'm not sure what woman he was afraid of, the one in the red dress or the secretary of state."
May 5, 2007
Pg. 12
Nations Manage to Find a Way Forward As U.S. Meets Briefly With Iran, Syria
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, May 4 -- Mutually suspicious and doubtful, Iraq's neighbors and benefactors nonetheless agreed here Friday on a shared vision for the beleaguered country's future and pledged to work together to help achieve it.
The Bush administration contributed by ending its long diplomatic isolation of Iran and Syria, both of which it accuses of backing violent forces in Iraq. Two senior administration officials had a brief and largely symbolic conversation with an Iranian official Friday morning, a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held bilateral talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem. Administration officials said they expected the contact, limited to Iraq issues, to continue if it brought results.
During a news briefing at the end of a conference of foreign ministers at this Egyptian resort, Rice pronounced the international gathering "extraordinary."
No one claimed that Iraq's severe problems or the growing sectarian tensions among the region's competing powers had been resolved.
In a final communique, government representatives from the region, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the Group of Eight industrialized nations pledged to support Iraqi democracy and sovereignty and condemned violence there. They said they would work to prevent the transit of fighters and weapons through their territories and would help Iraq strengthen its security forces.
In return, the Iraqi government promised to accelerate and expand political reforms to reconcile ethnic groups and religious factions, and to work to disband and disarm "all militias and illegally armed groups without exception."
Iraq made similar pledges in an agreement reached with a larger international group that met here Thursday to discuss political and economic reforms and forgiveness of Iraq's foreign debt.
"There was a lot of suspicion, a lot of mistrust," in several directions, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari acknowledged during a news conference. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, with Saudi Arabia in the lead, accused Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government of stalling on key reforms benefiting Iraq's Sunni minority.
"It is in my country's interest to see a reduction of this tension," Zebari said.
Signs of mistrust surfaced in speeches Friday. "Every day now in Iraq proves that a continuation of the current situation will lead to dangerous results, not only for Iraq but for its neighbors," said the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. "All of us should reject attempts" to make Iraq "an arena for competition between internal and regional powers or an area for terrorist and extremist operations."
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki repeated his government's call for the withdrawal of "foreign occupying forces" from Iraq and called the arrest by U.S. forces there of five Iranian officials a "brazen" violation of international law.
The Bush administration has accused Iran of training and arming Shiite militia groups.
The communique said a buildup of Iraqi defense forces will "pave the way for the conclusion of the mandate of the multi-national forces, whose presence will not be open-ended, and will terminate upon the request of and in accordance with timing to be agreed by the government of Iraq."
Rice said the reform agenda of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government "needs to be pursued urgently and it needs to be pursued to completion." A draft law to divide Iraq's oil revenue among regional groups is now available and it "should be passed . . . with dispatch," she said, along with revision of de-Baathification laws, a constitutional review, dismantling of militias and arrangements for provincial elections.
Rice's news conference was dominated by questions about her Thursday meeting with Moualem, and about Friday's encounter between Iranian officials and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and David M. Satterfield, Rice's chief coordinator for Iraq at the State Department. In the days leading up to the conference, the administration had decided to break the ice here with Syria and Iran in response to appeals from Maliki's government and critics at home.
Rice said she repeated to Moualem the U.S. concern about "foreign fighters," who are recruited by the group al-Qaeda in Iraq and pass through Syria, and asked for cooperation in stopping them. But she cautioned against reading too much into the meeting. "Let's take this one step at a time," she said. "I'm very glad we had the opportunity . . . but this was not about anything other than Iraq, and we will certainly see whether we can observe words being followed by deeds."
Crocker described the Friday morning meeting with Iran as a "pull-aside" on the margins of the conference. Reluctant to let the gathering pass without a face-to-face exchange between the United States and Iran, Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari arranged for the two U.S. officials and members of the Iranian delegation to literally bump into one another. Crocker later declined to characterize the conversation, which he said lasted about three minutes, but said it was limited to Iraq.
The Iranian foreign minister and Rice both attended a lunch hosted by Egypt on Thursday but had no direct exchange during a general conversation among foreign ministers.
The U.S. delegation anticipated a somewhat more direct exchange of pleasantries at a conference dinner Thursday night, but Mottaki showed up only briefly and then left before the meal was served. Iranian journalists later said he had been offended by the plunging neckline on the red dress of a Ukrainian violinist providing pre-dinner entertainment.
"Our officials can't look at things like this," said one Iranian reporter, noting that the Tehran government is in the midst of one of its periodic crackdowns on revealing female dress at home. Asked why he did not meet Rice, Mottaki said at a news conference, "There was no time, no appointment and no plans," the Reuters news service reported.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack cracked, "I'm not sure what woman he was afraid of, the one in the red dress or the secretary of state."