US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki kept a polite distance as they attended a group meeting and avoided discussion of a deadly Baghdad shootout involving guards from a US company protecting US diplomats.
The two greeted each other before the meeting on Saturday, but in a brief exchange of pleasantries, the issue of the shootout did not come up, deputy US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
With tensions soaring over the Sept. 16 incident, Rice and al-Maliki chose not to speak about it at a UN gathering at which they were among senior diplomats and officials from Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, weighing future assistance to Iraq.
Earlier, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, David Satterfield, said the two did not have any one-on-one contact. Satterfield testily told reporters that the issue of the incident was not on the agenda. He told reporters after the meeting that Rice had already spoken by telephone with al-Maliki about the matter.
The UN meeting came as a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows employees of security firm Blackwater USA opening fire on civilians without provocation on Sept. 16.
At the same time, Iraq's Interior Ministry said it had expanded its investigation of the shooting to include six other incidents involving Blackwater guards over the past seven months.
The developments added to rising US-Iraqi tensions, which shot up following the shooting that killed at least 11 Iraqis, including civilians.
The presence of Rice and al-Maliki at the same meeting was the closest high-level encounter between the governments since the incident and since Rice on Friday announced a full review of State Department security in Iraq.
The security review that Rice announced will examine the rules of engagement used by security contractors as well as the rules and regulations that govern their operations. That includes the jurisdiction in which contractors should be covered and the immunity from prosecution by Iraqi and US military courts they now enjoy.
A joint US-Iraqi commission is also beginning to look at widely conflicting accounts of last weekend's incident; the first session was planned for yesterday.
US witnesses have said the security guards were responding to an attack. Many Iraqi witnesses have told investigators the shooting was unprovoked. The prime minister has called the incident a "crime" and his government has suggested the US no longer use Blackwater for security.
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