US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice moved to Kuwait on Monday after trying to persuade Sunni-led Arab allies to back Iraq's Shia leadership but failing to clinch any concrete commitments on debt relief or diplomatic presence.
Speaking after a meeting in Bahrain with counterparts from eight Arab countries and Iraq, Rice said the talks covered relieving Iraq of billions of dollars in debt and sending ambassadors to the war-torn nation. But she did not report any decision on either score.
"I do believe it's a process which will move forward," Rice told reporters after the meeting, which came one day after she made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
"A number of countries around the table talked about their desire to have permanent representatives" in Baghdad, she said. "The terms of debt relief have long been known. It's just a matter of getting the negotiations done," Rice added.
A US official who spoke to reporters on the flight to Kuwait, where Rice was to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki later Monday and attend a meeting of Iraq's neighbours and major powers on Tuesday, confirmed that Arab diplomats made "no formal commitments" on sending ambassadors to Baghdad. But they showed "more disposition to look at this," he said, requesting anonymity.
Rice said she and the Arab ministers agreed that Iraq should become a "regular participant" in the 6+2+1 meetings that have brought together the six oil-rich Gulf Arab states, plus Jordan, Egypt and the United States four times since January 2007.
"I think that's a very good step forward for the reintegration of Iraq into regional affairs," she said at a joint news conference with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad al-Khalifa. "We're now in the process of choosing our ambassador" to Baghdad, Sheikh Khaled said without giving a timeline.
The Bahrainis are "having discussions with Iraq on that matter," he added. The United States has been pressing Arab allies to send ambassadors to Baghdad and help restructure Iraq's billions of dollars in debt, most of which dates back to the Saddam Hussein era.
Gulf states, especially Opec members Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, agreed several years ago to forgive a substantial part of Iraqi debt, estimated to total tens of billions of dollars. Iraq wants this to be translated into action.
Rice sought to persuade her counterparts from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as those of Egypt and Jordan, that Iraq's Shia-led government was now fighting for national interests, rather than sectarian ones, after it took on Shia militias allegedly armed by Iran.
"I think adjustments are going to have to be made in the way Iraq's neighbours think about it," Rice said in Baghdad, claiming that the Maliki government was now behaving in "a non-sectarian fashion."
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 Shia Iran.
Bahrain's foreign minister said the Arab diplomats had questions about "the ambiguity of the political picture" in Iraq, but received a "very good explanation" from Rice and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Zebari told reporters he presented to his Arab counterparts "a series of specific demands about ways of energising the Arab role in Iraq," and a request to waive debts to some of these countries totalling around 40 billion dollars. Zebari said Iraq has given Arab countries "security guarantees" and allocated premises for their future embassies in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
"There are pledges and a desire on the part of these countries to reopen their embassies in Iraq," he said. According to the US State Department, Iraq's debt has been reduced by 66.5 billion dollars over the past three years, including a total of 42.3 billion dollars cancelled by Paris Club members. The United States cancelled 100 percent of Iraq's debt to it of 4.1 billion dollars while other Paris Club members agreed to cancel 80 percent of the debt.
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