US Vice President Joe Biden started a final push yesterday to persuade Iraq’s squabbling leaders to end their differences and form a government months after elections ushered in political deadlock.
Biden, on the third and final day of a visit to Baghdad, was to hold talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, after urging top politicians to “honor the trust” shown in them by Iraqi voters.
The US leader made his comments late on Sunday after meetings with the two men whose feud over who as prime minister should lead Iraq’s new government has stymied efforts to advance its fledgling democracy.
Biden stressed Washington had no “hidden agenda” over the outcome of the dispute, which has overshadowed a phased withdrawal of US combat troops after seven years of operations since the 2003 invasion that toppled former president Saddam Hussein.
He met first with Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister who narrowly beat incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki into second place in the March 7 election.
At an evening reception after the talks, Biden appealed to the disputing leaders and other politicians to break the impasse.
“My plea to you is finish what you started,” Biden said in a speech that was quickly followed by several mortars landing in the Green Zone where the US embassy is based. “In my humble opinion, in order for you to achieve your goals you must have all communities’ voices represented in this new government, proportionately.”
“Iraqiya, State of Law, Iraqi National Alliance, the Kurdistan Alliance, all are going to have to play a meaningful role in this new government for it to work,” Biden said, referring to the country’s major political blocs.
Allawi, a Shiite, insists as the election’s narrow victor that he has the right to become prime minister, especially as his broadly secular Iraqiya coalition had strong backing in Sunni-dominated provinces.
He has also warned a failure to see Sunni voters’ properly represented in power could reignite the sectarian violence that saw tens of thousands killed.
Biden stressed real progress on hammering out a government could only be made if leaders put the national interest before all others.
“Subordinating individual interest is fundamental to the success of any nation,” he said. “You should not, and I am sure you will not, let any state, or the United States or any state in the region dictate what will become of you all.”
Biden’s remarks came just hours after the firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on Iraqi leaders not to be swayed by the US.
“I advise Allawi and Maliki not to allow the occupier to intervene,” said Sadr, whose militia, the Mehdi Army, has repeatedly clashed with US forces since the invasion.
“The talks should ensure the Iraqi agenda, not the American agenda,” the Iran-based cleric said in a statement issued from his office in the holy city of Najaf in central Iraq.
Several hundred of Sadr’s supporters held a protest in Kufa, also central Iraq, against Biden’s visit.
A senior US administration official traveling with Biden said the vice president had delivered a consistent message in his talks with Allawi and Maliki.
“We are not disengaging from Iraq, our engagement is changing. We are moving from a military lead to a civilian lead,” said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He [Biden] made it very clear that we have no candidates, we have no preferred outcomes. There was no discussion of an American plan for Iraq because there isn’t one.”
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