The United States won Saudi backing on Tuesday for a US plan to stabilise Iraq, but Washington's Gulf ally said success depended on Baghdad tackling sectarian strife driving the country towards civil war.
Saudi Arabia fears that a plan announced by US President George W. Bush to stabilise Iraq would lead to an early departure of US troops from Iraq, leaving the violence-ravaged country moving towards full-out civil war that might spill beyond Iraq's borders.
"We agree fully with the goals set by the new strategy, which in our view are the goals that - if implemented - would solve the problems that face Iraq," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a joint news conference with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Riyadh. But he said the Iraqi government needed to play its part. "(The government) must stop the resistance, bring everyone into the political process and realise the hopes of the people," he said, adding Shia militias must be disbanded and the US-backed constitution, seen as pro-Shia, revised.
"(The government) must deal with the issue of militias," he said. "Implementation (of US strategy) requires a positive response by the Iraqis themselves to these goals ... Other countries can help, but the main responsibility in taking decisions rests on the Iraqis," he said.
The US administration has been urging Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to play a greater role in backing Iraq. Rice was due to meet with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and the six members of the Gulf Co-operation Council - Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates - in Kuwait later on Tuesday to try to forge a common position on Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fears an early US troop withdrawal would solidify Shia power and leave minority Sunnis at the mercy of Shia militias.
Rice, who met King Abdullah on Monday night, acknowledged the Saudi concern about militias but raised the issue of Saudi debt relief for Iraq, which Washington says would be a big help. "We will continue to work with the Iraqi government to make sure networks running dangerous militias are stopped ... The financial issue will need to be worked out," Rice said. "We have the same goal, which is an Iraq unified with its integrity and territory intact which doesn't face outside interference," she said.
IRANIAN MEDDLING?The Saudi minister declined to say what Riyadh would do if the new US strategy failed to stabilise the country, though he rejected suggestions that Saudi Arabia would use oil as a political tool to pressure Iran over its policies in the region.
Both Washington and Riyadh accuse Shia power Iran of encouraging militia violence in Iraq. US forces are holding five Iranians after raiding an Iranian government office in the Iraqi city of Arbil last week - the second such operation in Iraq in the past few weeks.
A Saudi official said on Monday Iran had asked Saudi Arabia, a US ally, to help ease tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States, as Washington held out the possibility of "engagement" with Tehran if it changed tack in Iraq.
But an Iranian newspaper on Tuesday quoted a foreign ministry official denying a request for mediation, and both Rice and Prince Saudi also played down such talk.
Rice, on a weeklong Middle East tour, said on Monday she would bring Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas together soon for what she called informal talks on how to set up a Palestinian state.
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