Seek reconciliation, says Gates

Baghdad: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told Iraq's leaders yesterday that US support was not open-ended and legislation to speed up reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites had to be passed by the end of the summer.

"Progress in reconciliation will be an important element in our evaluation in the late summer," Gates said, referring to a timeframe US commanders have said will be used to gauge the progress of a nine-week-old security crackdown in Baghdad.

"Our commitment to Iraq is long-term, but it is not a commitment to have our young men and women patrolling Iraq's streets open-endedly," he told a news conference.

Gates's comments were among the bluntest by a senior US official calling for Iraqs leaders to accelerate reconciliation efforts between Sunnis and Shiites.

"I think we will see where we are at the end of summer," he said, when asked what would happen if Iraq did not pass the legislation by then.

Washington, which has 146,000 troops in Iraq, is putting more pressure on the government to speed up a law on sharing Iraq's oil wealth and rolling back a ban on members of Saddam Hussain's Baath party from office.

Gates said in his meeting with Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki he expressed the hope that parliament "will not recess for the summer without passing laws on hydrocarbons, debaathification, provincial elections and other measures".

"These measures will not fix all the problems in Iraq, but they will manifest the will of the entire government of Iraq to be a government for all of the people in Iraq in the future," he said.

Following the meeting, Al Maliki issued a statement repeating that his priorities remained national reconciliation, restoring security and legislative reform.

Appeal

"The prime minister is optimistic that Iraqis of whatever political and ideological faction will be able to escape from the trenches of sectarianism for the sake of the country," it said.

Gates said the ongoing Baghdad security plan, backed by extra US troops, aimed to give Al Maliki time and space for political progress, not to end the conflict itself.

Baghdad, where 80,000 US and Iraqi troops are implementing the security crackdown, was on Wednesday rocked by a series of bombings that killed almost 200 people on one of the bloodiest days of the war to date.

But Gates, who also met top US generals and his Iraqi counterpart, Defence Minister Abdul Qader Jasem Obaidi, defended the two-month-old "surge" strategy against domestic critics who see it as a failure.

"It's not a surprise that the results are mixed at this point," he said, blaming the bombings on Al Qaida. "We expected tough times."

Before leaving the fortified Baghdad Green Zone by US military helicopter Gates held talks with President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents, Tareq Al Hashimi and Adel Abdul Mahdi. The four discussed the "importance of national reconciliation" to end the internal Shiite-Sunni conflict, a statement from Talabani's office said.

"They also discussed the accountability and reconciliation law which aims to promote reconciliation and national unity among Iraqis," it added.