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| Monday, 9 August 2004 |
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Iraq knocks on door of its return to Arab world CAIRO, (Xinhua) Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has knocked on the door of the war-torn country's return to the Arab world in an eight-nation trip, the first of its kind since a power transfer on June 28, analysts said. Allawi's two-week whirlwind tour, made against the backdrop of the worsening security situation in the violence-ravaged country, was capped with the restoration of diplomatic ties between Iraq and Kuwait, 14 years after their ties were severed when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent his troops to occupy the small but oil-rich emirate. "The two sides discussed ways of boosting cooperation between the two countries in all fields and agreed to resume full diplomatic relations," said a joint statement issued following Allawi's visit to Kuwait, which served as the main launch pad for US-led war on Iraq last year that toppled Saddam's regime. Iraqi troops were evicted seven months later by the US-led multinational coalition in 1991. Moreover, Iraq and Saudi Arabia agreed to resume their diplomatic ties during Allawi's tour of Saudi Arabia, a heavyweight in the Arab world. The moves could be seen as a diplomatic triumph for the US-handpicked Prime Minister, who has expressed willingness to usher in a "new chapter" in relations between Iraq and the rest of the Arab world. While in his stops in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, Allawi was given red carpet reception. The Arab nations have vowed to lend a helping hand to Iraq in its economic reconstruction process. In Saudi Arabia, the Saudi leadership has promised to offer 1 billion US dollars in this respect. On the security front. Allawi has asked Iraq's neighbours to tighten the control of their common borders. Allawi's visit to Egypt coincided with a foreign ministers' meeting of Iraq's neighbours in Cairo which ended with an agreement on holding a meeting of interior ministers in Iran. "Foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbours welcomed a proposal by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiar al-Zibari to convene a meeting of interior ministers and security officials of neighbouring countries to address Iraq's security concern," said a statement, issued after the meeting attended by top diplomats of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Turkey. Iran and Egypt. Iraq has claimed that some Iraqi neighbours might try to fight the United States on the Iraqi soil. "I think what is happening regarding Iraq's relations with its neighbours has other dimensions, as some of these countries may want to fight America in our country, but we end up paying the price."Zibari said before his departure for Cairo. "Iraq's neighbours must understand that if the unrest and instability in Iraq is not brought under control, it will flare up and spread to their backyards," he said. But Iraq's neighbours have their own concerns. Turkey and Syria are worried about a proposed federal system that would meet the political aspirations of Iraq's ethnic groups, such as the Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south. Turkey, which fought a 15-year war with Kurdish rebels in the southeastern region, fears that a Kurdish federal province could incite some 12 million Kurdish Turks to push for autonomy, while Syria, which has a sizable Kurdish population, shares similar fears. Zibari, however, dispelled Turkish fears about the establishment of a Kurdish republic in northern Iraq. During his Arab trip, Allawi had called on Arab and Islamic troops to be sent to Iraq to protect the UN mission in Iraq, in a contrast with its refusal to accept the deployment of troops from its neighbours. Explaining a Saudi initiative on sending an Islamic peace-keeping force to Iraq on Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said, "Any Muslim and Arab deployment in Iraq must have Iraqi consensus, operate under a UN umbrella and replace the US - led coalition forces in Iraq." "Allawi's interim government is in a dilemma - under pressure from Arab countries for the withdrawal of the occupation forces and bowing to the US rejection of troops from Iraq's neighbours," Hassan Nafia, a noted Arab political analyst, told Xinhua. "Under such circumstances, there could be no breakthrough in terms of security cooperation between Iraq and its neighbours," he said, adding that mutual trust between Iraq and its neighbours has not been fully built up. "What is the difference between an American viceroy directly managing Iraq for the US interests and an Iraqi administration doing the same thing indirectly," said a commentary, carried by the Egyptian Gazette, Enditem. |
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