LONDON, June 27: British, US and Iraqi officials have been in talks with groups in Iraq that support resistance to try to bring them into the political process, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday.
He spoke a day after US and Iraqi officials said they were talking to tribal leaders, clerics and some groups linked to the Sunni Arab resistance. Blair said Sunnis were involved in the talks.
However, he said they did not compromise London’s position on terrorism and added there was no contact with hardliners such as Al Qaeda’s Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who he said was at the extreme end of a ‘spectrum’.
“Throughout the entirety of this we have been engaged perfectly properly in trying to pull away some parts of the insurgency and lock them into the political process,” Blair told a news conference.
“There’ll be a spectrum leading through to people who aren’t engaged in violence but who are sympathetic to the violence, and then in the middle you’ve got some people who may be involved in parts of the violence or not,” he added.
“It’s our job politically to pull as many people into the political process, so that is an engagement not just by the Iraqi government, but by the Americans, ourselves, everybody.”
Blair agreed with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who said on Sunday it would be Iraqi forces, not US or British troops, who eventually defeat the resistance. He added that British soldiers would stay in Iraq ‘until the job is done’.
However, asked about Rumsfeld’s comments that the violence could go on for a decade or more, Blair said he did not know how long it would last, adding: “It’s the next year in my view that is absolutely decisive in this.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari, speaking in London, said it was not a question of ‘mathematics’ as to when the guerillas could be defeated.
“It depends on the Iraqi security forces and terrorists and infiltration from neighbouring countries,” he said.
“Withdrawal is a national demand for Iraq. No country would accept foreign troops forever...We are looking forward to foreign troops leaving Iraq but not at the expense of our security,” he said.—Reuters
LONDON, June 27: British, US and Iraqi officials have been in talks with groups in Iraq that support resistance to try to bring them into the political process, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday.
