July 25, 2007	Wednesday	Rajab 09, 1428

BAGHDAD, July 24: The United States on Tuesday accused Iran of stepping up its alleged support of armed groups in Iraq in the two months since the arch foes began talks aimed at finding a way to quell the fighting.

The US ambassador to Iraq charged that Iran, despite professing support for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has increased its assistance to rogue militias.

The meeting produced “several heated exchanges”, ambassador Ryan Crocker, who led the US side at the talks in Baghdad, told Washington-based reporters by telephone.

But Iraqi leaders, including Maliki, put a positive spin on the second face-to-face encounter between the three parties since May, hailing what they dubbed the creation of a tripartite security committee.

Crocker downplayed the importance of the panel, and insisted that Tehran should be judged by results on the battlefield.

“We have actually seen militia-related activity with Iranian support go up and not down,” he told reporters in Baghdad, referring to the period since the Iranian, Iraqi and US delegations last met on May 28.

“When there are results, the results that count will be results we see on the ground. Rather clearly we haven't seen those kind of results so far,” he claimed, after several hours of talks with Iranian and Iraqi officials.

The talks were hosted by Maliki in his offices inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone — and area which US commanders say is bombarded daily with Iranian-made shells. He began the meeting with a brief speech.

“We do not want to see Iraq interfering in the affairs of others, nor do we want anyone to interfere in its internal affairs,” Maliki said, according to a statement from his office.

Iraqi officials struck a similarly upbeat tone following the meeting.

Both the United States and Iran expressed their support for the Iraqi government's “efforts to provide security and stability, to fight terrorism, hunt outlaws,” Maliki said.

Tehran's envoy Hassan Kazemi Qomi headed the Iranian delegation in the talks attended by a delegation of Iraqi officials led by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

Crocker said the heated arguments erupted when he accused Iran of providing direct support to extremist militias — both training and actual weapons — and that Washington “got the proof.” Qomi “took exception to that,” Crocker said, adding that a “brief summary” of the evidence was provided by the United States at the talks.

Tensions also filled the air when Crocker raised the subject of Iran's alleged support for terrorism throughout the region, including for Hezbollah and Hamas, to which “they took exception.” Summarising the talks as “difficult discussions,” Crocker said the difficulty stemmed from “the lack of clear action on the ground to back Iran's stated policy” that it wanted to see security normalised in Iraq.

As at May's meeting, officials said the talks had only dealt with the security situation in Iraq, leaving aside a roster of other disputes between the United States and the Islamic republic.

After the meeting Iraqi officials announced that the three sides had agreed to form a tripartite security committee to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, support the Iraqi government and increase security along the Iran-Iraq border.

But statements from Maliki's office and the foreign ministry made no mention of the mainly Shia militias that the United States accuses Iran of arming and training.

And Crocker insisted that, as in May, the three sides had broached the idea without discussing any specific details, such as how membership would be determined and when the committee would meet.—AFP