BAGHDAD, 19 August 2007 — Iraq’s president and prime minister urged the nation’s diplomats yesterday to forge strong global ties at a time when Baghdad faces bitter criticism over its failure to end its own bloodshed.
“Your role should be as militants to defend the new Iraq,” President Jalal Talabani said at the opening of a four-day conference of Iraqi ambassadors. “You have to play an effective role in the political and media domain. You should show the achievements made in Iraq.”
Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government and its backers in the United States have been disappointed by the lack of support from other powers for Iraq’s beleaguered government, particularly from its Arab neighbors.
“Iraq is unjustly accused of not wanting relations with the Arab countries but the opposite is true. Iraq has been making painstaking efforts for the sake of good relations with the Arabs,” Talabani told the envoys.
Iraq’s sectarian conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead and increased regional tensions, amid reports that various warring factions have received support from outside.
Talabani also urged the envoys to boost relations with “friendly countries” in order to secure economic investment.
Baghdad is negotiating with several countries to both cancel billions of dollars of debt given to the ousted regime of executed dictator Saddam Hussein and to secure fresh loans for developing its devastated economy.
Maliki echoed Talabani’s call. “No one should believe he is on an easy mission but is rather in a highly difficult one,” he said.
“We are confronting terror. You should cement relations with the world so that we can... make the world understand what kind of new Iraq we are seeking. We want to tell them we do not support dividing Iraq or sectarianism.”
Meanwhile, seven people were killed when a mortar barrage hit the town of Khalis north of Baghdad yesterday, police said. An estimated 17 mortar rounds hit the local market, residential areas and a hospital.
