Baghdad rejects Biden's offer on national reconciliation

Baghdad: The Iraqi government spokesman publicly rejected the American vice-president's offer to help with national reconciliation, saying it is an internal affair.

Government's spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh's comments on Saturday were in response to an appeal Joseph Biden made a day earlier for Iraqis to do more to bring the country's deeply divided factions together and his offer of US help.

Biden also warned on Friday that US assistance may not be forthcoming if the country reverts to ethnic and sectarian violence.

Al Dabbagh said on Iraqi state TV that "the political situation won't accept that the United States intervenes in an internal issue, whether that issue is reconciliation, relations between various Iraqi groups or between the [self-ruled Kurdish] region and Baghdad."

Meanwhile, Biden spent the Fourth of July with his son and other American troops in Iraq on Saturday.

Biden took a break from politics and presided over a naturalisation ceremony for 237 US troops from 59 countries in a marble rotunda at one of Saddam Hussain's former palaces at what is now Camp Victory, the US military headquarters on the western outskirts of Baghdad.

He then had lunch with the 261st Theatre Tactical Signal Brigade from Delaware, to which his son, Beau, belongs.

Biden's unusually long three-day trip to Baghdad, which began late on Thursday, was aimed at fostering political reconciliation after US combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities as part of a security pact that calls for a full withdrawal by the end of 2011.

"The US administration is concerned about the absence of progress on some political issues in Iraq and this is clear," Al Dabbagh added. "But the Prime Minister [Nouri Al Maliki ] said that these are internal issues and it is the Iraqis who will handle the matter and the interference of non-Iraqis in these issues will create unnecessary complications and problems."

Nouri Al Maliki is trying to use the US withdrawal to build support before January 30 general elections and his spokesman's remarks were likely aimed at an Iraqi public impatient with the American presence.

But they also signalled a growing assertiveness by Iraqis as the US dominance in the country wanes with its pullback of troops.

Al Maliki's office also said the Iraqi government is committed to the national reconciliation process but excluded Saddam's ousted Baath Party, saying "it is responsible for the destruction inflicted on Iraq".

It was Biden's first visit to Iraq as vice-president and as Obama's new unofficial point man on Iraq, although he has been to the country several times as a senator. Biden planned to fly to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq later on Saturday, but the trip was cancelled due to heavy sandstorms.

Biden's visit and his new position overseeing the US administration's Iraq policy reflect growing concern about a recent rise in violence after a series of bombings that killed scores of people.