Iraq leader seeks Arab help at tense meeting

KUWAIT CITY (AP) — The United States and Iran, the two nations with the most at stake in Iraq, pointedly ignored each other Tuesday as Iraq’s premier unsuccessfully pleaded for immediate financial and diplomatic backing from rich Arab neighbors still leery of Tehran’s influence on Baghdad.

A sharp exchange between Saudi and Iranian diplomats underscored the mistrust that has hampered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s mission to win those specific commitments.

Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki said only a brief hello and did not shake hands as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he cannot understand why Arab states have not forgiven Iraq’s crushing debts, made new loans or sent ambassadors to Baghdad.

“We find it difficult to explain why diplomatic exchange [between Iraq and its Middle Eastern neighbors] has not taken place,” al-Maliki told foreign ministers from nearby nations. “Many foreign countries have kept their diplomatic missions in Baghdad and did not make security excuses.”

Rice sat diagonally across a large U-shaped table from Mottaki as al-Maliki spoke at the opening of a meeting of Iraq’s neighbors taking place in Kuwait — the third such meeting in the past year.

A copy of the conference’s draft resolution obtained by The Associated Press calls for increased help from Iraq’s neighbors in fighting militias and “assistance in solving the issue of Iraqi debts.” But Iraq’s neighbors have made similar pledges at two previous meetings, with little follow-through. They have also promised to open diplomatic missions in Baghdad, but none has yet done so.