Iraq's Kurds and Arabs struggle to defuse tensions

AP ^ | August 2, 2009 | Yahya Barzanji

[Cheap_Hessian]

DOKAN, Iraq – Iraq's prime minister headed north Sunday to the self-ruled Kurdish region to defuse rising tensions and address a range of disputes that have poisoned relations and threatened to become a new source of the conflict for the battered country as U.S. forces increasingly disengage.

The meeting came as six died in bombs in Baghdad and western Iraq.

U.S. officials have warned that Arab-Kurdish tensions could jeopardize security gains, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered U.S. help to mediate during his visit last month to Iraq in which he traveled to Baghdad and the Kurdish city of Irbil.

Shiite lawmaker Ali al-Adeeb insisted there was no U.S. pressure to hold the meeting but conceded "there is a will and a wish to solve all the problems between the region and the central government before the U.S withdrawal from Iraq."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with recently re-elected regional President Massoud Barzani, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and other Kurdish officials Sunday at the resort town of Dokan. The leaders agreed to establish a committee to solve the outstanding issues.

"The challenges that face the political process require more meetings and cooperation between all Iraqi people," al-Maliki said Sunday at a press conference with Barzani and Talabani. "I am very optimistic after this meeting."

The prime minister, who faces national parliamentary elections on Jan. 16, said last month in Washington that differences between the Kurds and the rest of Iraq were among the most dangerous problems facing his country and that they must be resolved by constitutional means, not by force.