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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (346351)	8/9/2007 10:15:05 PM
From: SilentZ	Respond to of 1575535

DELETED

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (346351)	8/10/2007 1:42:12 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1575535

US troops must go, Iran tells Iraqi PM by Stuart Williams Fri Aug 10, 2:53 AM ET Iran's leaders on Thursday told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that US troops must leave his country, in talks that reinforced growing bilateral ties and sparked unease in Washington. Following a renewed warning from President George W. Bush over Tehran's alleged meddling in Iraq, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei told Maliki the presence of US troops was the biggest obstacle to restoring security. Leaving behind a political crisis at home, the Shiite premier received a warm welcome from Iran's top leaders, including Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and national security chief Ali Larijani. Maliki was also quoted by Iranian state media as praising Iran's "constructive" role in "fighting terrorism" in Iraq -- a statement Bush moved swiftly to contradict. Bush, holding a pre-vacation press conference, said he was not surprised at pictures showing cordial meetings between Maliki and top Iranian leaders in Tehran but that he hoped the prime minister was delivering a tough message. "You don't want the picture to be kind of, you know, duking it out," when on a diplomatic mission he said, putting up his fists like a boxer. "If the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart to heart with my friend the prime minister because I do not believe they are," Bush said. Bush cited Iran's support for Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah; Tehran's suspect nuclear program; and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel warnings, which he said Washington "cannot live with." "My message to the Iranian people is, 'You can do better than this current government. You don't have to be isolated. You don't have to be in a position where you can't realize your full economic potential,'" Bush said. Asked whether he was confident that, in past talks, Maliki shared his view about Iran, the US president replied: "Does he understand with some extremist groups there's connections with Iran? And he does. And I'm confident." The US president's comments came days after he disagreed sharply with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about Iran's influence after Karzai called Tehran a positive force in combating extremists in his country. And they came as top US officials worried about the pace of political reconciliation in Iraq, amid misgivings in Washington about whether Maliki, a Shiite, truly wanted or was able to build bridges to minority Sunnis. However, Khamenei said in his meeting with Maliki in the Shiite holy city of Mashhad that it was the presence of the US-led forces that was the "biggest misfortune" shadowing Iraq. "The occupiers claim that if they exit now, Iraq will be destroyed. Whereas if the occupiers leave, all the Iraqi officials will move with full force to solve the people's problems," state television quoted Khamenei as saying. Several Iraqi officials have warned against a hasty US pullout on the grounds that Iraq's own security forces are not ready to take over fully. "The US are trying to put in power a lackey government" in Iraq, Khamenei added. "But the US policy will definitely fail and the victors in this arena will be the Iraqi people." Maliki was quoted as telling Khamenei: "Iraq should regain its independence and dignity. The Iraqi government is trying to get Iraq back to normal." Ahmadinejad earlier told the Iraqi prime minister: "Iran and Iraq both have heavy responsibilities to bring about peace and security in the region." Maliki's talks appeared to confirm the increasingly warm relations that have emerged between majority Shiite Iraq and overwhelmingly Shiite Iran following the fall of the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iran and Saddam's Iraq waged a war between 1980 and 1988 in which around one million people died. Maliki has been a vocal supporter of two rounds of discussions between the two countries' envoys to Iraq, but these have been marked by acrimonious disagreements over who was to blame for the bloodshed. Like many other Iraqi Shiite leaders, Maliki lived in Iran during the 1980s, when Baghdad was at war with Tehran, to escape persecution of his Dawa party by Saddam's regime. In a highly symbolic move, Maliki also met the families of Iranian officials arrested in Iraq by US forces on accusations of being members of an elite Revolutionary Guards force on a mission to stir trouble. Iran insists the men were diplomats and is livid that the United States has shown no sign of releasing them. "The Iraqi government will do all it can to release these people," Maliki said, expressing optimism that the officials would be freed and condemning their arrest, state broadcasting said. In a separate meeting in Damascus, Iraq's neighbours including US foes Syria and Iran agreed to cooperate with Baghdad in a bid to restore stability to Iraq. "The participants expressed a willingness to cooperate with the Iraqi government to bring about security and stability in Iraq and to build the Iraqi army," said a statement after a two-day meeting of the Iraqi Neighbours Border Security Working Group.