BAGHDAD: Iraq must not become a crucible for confrontation between the US and its regional foes Iran and Syria, the foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari warned on Sunday, adding that Iraq’s security should be the “only issue on the agenda” of a major international conference aimed at finding ways to stabilise the strife-torn country.

“We are saying keep your quarrels and fights away; we have enough on our plate,” Mr Zebari said in an interview. “We are getting caught in the middle and the tensions are affecting us immediately and directly.”

The foreign minister announced at the weekend that Iraq’s neighbours, the five permanent members of the UN security council, and the G8 group of industrialised nations would meet in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on May 3 to discuss the security situation in Iraq. US officials have said that US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will attend.Mr Zebari said the conference had taken on even more importance following the crisis over the Iranian seizure of the British sailors in the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iraq and Iran. “It worsened the atmosphere between the US, Britain and Iran, and that is a concern for us at this vital time,” he said.

The US-Iraqi security plan needed to be “supported and not undermined” if national unity and reconciliation were to mean “more than words on paper”.

His comments came as fighters loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, thought to be in hiding in Iran, continued to put up fierce resistance to a US-Iraqi military push through the southern city of Diwaniyah. Thousands of Shia began to converge on the holy city of Najaf ahead of an anti-US demonstration on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of the Ba’athist regime.

Al-Sadr had initially supported the security plan, but in a statement on Sunday he called on his Mahdi militia to stop cooperating with the US in Iraq and concentrate their attacks on US forces.

Dealing with al-Sadr and the Shia militias — which many believe receive financial and logistical support from Iran — will be one of the key issues at the forthcoming security meeting. The US believes sectarian militias are doing more damage to Iraq’s unity than the suicide bombers.

The meeting is a follow-up to a conference last month in Baghdad where US diplomats met their Iranian and Syrian counterparts to push for a halt to helping the insurgency and to prevent Shia-Sunni tensions from spreading. It was the first time for years that envoys from Iran and the US had been in talks.

There was no agreement, but Mr Zebari said the meeting broke the ice. “Success in Iraq will only occur if there is a viable regional environment,” he said. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service