Arabs lay down the rules before they consider supporting Al-Maliki's government, writes Salah Hemeid Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki kicked off a regional tour in Cairo this week, attempting to seek help to stabilise his beleaguered and violence-torn country. During his first tour of the Arab region, he also tried to drum up support for next month's international conference in Egypt aimed at quelling the raging bloodshed in Iraq. His tour comes against a backdrop of the warning directed by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Iraqi leaders that they need to work faster to reconcile their rival factions as American support cannot be taken for granted for ever. In Cairo, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told Al-Maliki that Egypt supports Iraq's attempt to achieve peace, security and stability but he strongly emphasised "the need to achieve national reconciliation between all sects of Iraqi society". Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa delivered a similar message to Al-Maliki. But the Middle East News Agency elaborated further when it quoted an Egyptian diplomatic source as saying that the Arab governments will link their support for Al-Maliki's government to a package of reforms they have suggested. The Arab governments have been suspicious of Iraq's new leadership, blaming it for fuelling sectarian violence. At their summit in Saudi Arabia last month, Arab leaders took a tough line on Iraq, demanding it change its constitution and the set-up of its armed forces to include more Sunnis and end the de-Baathification programme that uprooted former members of Saddam Hussein's regime from the government. The Arabs' message echoed similar frustration by Washington on Al-Maliki's failure so far to achieve the much-discussed national reconciliation. During a visit to Baghdad last week, Gates urged Iraqi leaders to end sectarian violence and warned that American troops would not stay on indefinitely if no progress was made. "Our commitment to Iraq is long-term, but it is not a commitment to have our young men and women patrolling Iraqi streets open-endedly," he said after meeting Al-Maliki. Gates said he had spoken to the Iraqi leader about "reaching out to the Sunnis" to end the bloodletting that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis. They discussed efforts to end the Shia-Sunni conflict and the accountability and reconciliation law which aims to promote reconciliation and national unity among Iraqis. The law is a refinement of the controversial de-Baathification law. It aims to re- integrate former supporters of Saddam into public life in a bid to reduce the bitterness of fuelling the Sunni anti-American campaign. On Monday US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker also warned that Iraq's feuding leaders had to move away from an all or nothing approach to reach the broad political compromises necessary for healing their fractured country. Crocker, in his first news conference since arriving in Baghdad in March, said the months ahead for Al-Maliki's shaky coalition government would be important. "I think the Baghdad security plan can buy time, but what it does is buy time for what it ultimately has to do -- a set of political understandings among Iraqis. So I think these months ahead are going to be critical," Crocker said. Al-Maliki rejected Arab conditions for backing his government's efforts to stabilise the strife- torn nation and accused some Arab countries of still harbouring terrorists who infiltrate into Iraq. "We welcome consultations but we won't accept conditions or dictation," he said at a press conference on Monday. He further denied that the soaring violence in Iraq is sectarian and accused the Al-Qaeda terror group and loyalists of the former regime of Saddam Hussein of attempts to torpedo his government's efforts to restore stability. Al-Maliki also accused some Arab countries of harbouring and facilitating funding for foreign fighters to infiltrate into Iraq. "They should stop these factories of terrorism," he said. He also repeated that his priorities remained national reconciliation, restoring security and legislative reform." While in Cairo , Al-Maliki announced that he ordered a halt to a construction barrier being built by the US military that would separate a Sunni enclave from Shia areas of Baghdad. The barrier has drawn sharp criticism from residents and Sunni leaders who complained it would isolate the community. Hundreds of Sunnis held a protest in Baghdad Monday to oppose its construction in their neighbourhood. Al-Maliki's visit comes 10 days prior to two conferences on Iraq which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh. The first meeting intends to officially launch an International Compact with Iraq [ICI] in May, aimed at strengthening the international organisation's role in Iraq. The second conference will be attended by Iraq's neighbours as well as Bahrain and Egypt, and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain. This conference broadly seeks to create a framework within which world powers and Iraq's neighbours can help Iraqis end the raging sectarian conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since last year. Such American and Arab frustration will most certainly impact discussions at the gathering of Iraq's neighbours and the global conferences on Iraq in Egypt next month. The participants of the meetings will launch a three-level process of negotiations on Iraq: the first will be political reconciliation inside Iraq and the second will cover the regional process embodied by bilateral US talks with Iran and Syria. The third will focus on gathering a wider group of interested nations that could help stabilise Iraq as US military forces are gradually withdrawn. Those who will attend the two conferences at Sharm El-Sheikh might next week find themselves in a deadlock over their priorities. While Al-Maliki will press for support for his security plan to uproot the insurgency, the rest of the participants will press ahead with demands that he should make progress on reconciliation which is ultimately the only solution to the conflict.
