Al-Maliki: Iraq to call for regional conference

updated 4:01 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his government will send envoys to neighboring countries to pave the way for a regional conference on ending Iraq’s rampant violence, which on Tuesday killed more than 40 people.

The Shiite leader appeared to back down from previous opposition to handing neighboring nations a say in Iraqi affairs but stressed that he wants the conference to be held in Iraq and while his government would welcome help, it would not tolerate interference.

In new bloodshed, suspected insurgents set off a car bomb to stop a minibus carrying Shiite government employees in Baghdad, then shot and killed 15 of them, the government said. In another attack in the capital on Tuesday, two car bombs exploded in a commercial district, killing 15 other Iraqis, police said.

The U.S. command said an insurgent attack on an American military patrol in Baghdad on Monday killed one soldier and wounded five. Another U.S. serviceman died in southern Iraq on Monday in an accident involving his vehicle.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the military expects all of the country to be under the control of Iraqi forces by mid-2007.

“We would expect to see the entire country having reached provincial Iraqi control by early fall of next year,” Caldwell said. “We should see the complete transfer of command and control of all Iraqi army divisions by late spring, early summer.”

He said this is part of an accelerated timetable discussed by President Bush and al-Maliki last week in Jordan.

The U.S. maintains about 140,000 troops in Iraq and is now considering changing its strategic course in the country, which the U.S.-led coalition invaded in 2003.

Al-Maliki said the government will send envoys to neighboring countries to exchange views and discuss their possible contributions to building security and stability in Iraq.

Snow: No invite yet to U.S.
“After the political climate is cleared, we will call for the convening of a regional conference in which these countries that are keen on the stability and security of Iraq will participate,” the Shiite leader said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said that “as far as I know, there has been no invitation extended for the United States to participate.”

The statement came a day before the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat from Indiana, is to release recommendations on changing U.S. strategy in Iraq.

Those are expected to include a suggestion to engage Iraq’s neighboring nations, including U.S. adversaries Iran and Syria, in the search for an end to the violence in Iraq.

Annan calls for parley
Other top Iraqi politicians, including President Jalal Talabani and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who leads parliament’s largest bloc, have in recent days rejected a suggestion for an international conference by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The outgoing U.N. chief said that such a gathering could be useful if the political parties involved met outside Iraq.

“These delegations I mentioned will go to these (neighboring) governments because we want a regional or international conference on Iraq to be convened, but not on the premise that it finds solutions on its own, but in light of what the national unity government wants,” al-Maliki said.

“We are leaning toward convening this conference in Iraq because that will be a show of support for the Iraqi people,” he said.

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