Haaretz
TEHRAN - Iraq's president
said Wednesday he had reached a security
agreement with Iran, which
the United States accuses of fueling the chaos in the war-torn country.
Iran's president called on countries to stop backing "terrorists" in Iraq
and for the Americans to withdraw.
Tehran is believed to back some
of the Shiite militias blamed in the vicious sectarian killings that have
thrown the country into chaos. The United States has said the Iraqi
government should press Iran to stop interfering in its affairs in a bid
to calm the violence.
Presidents Jalal Talabani of Iraq and Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad of Iran held talks Wednesday hours before U.S. President
George W. Bush was due to meet with the Iraqi prime minister in Jordan in
talks aimed at finding a solution to Iraq's spiraling
bloodshed.
Talabani gave no details on the security agreement with
Iran, and Ahmadinejad made no mention of any deal at a joint press
conference in Tehran.
"We discussed in the fields of security,
economy, oil and industry. Our agreement was complete," Talabani told
reporters. "This visit was 100 percent successful. Its result will appear
soon."
It was not clear if Talabani's comments reflected an
agreement by Tehran to try to rein in Shiite militias. Most of the
militias are run by political parties that are a powerful part of the
coalition government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He has resisted
U.S. pressure to crack down on the militias.
Ahmadinejad repeated
his calls for the United States to withdraw its forces from
Iraq.
"I advise you to leave Iraq," he said, addressing the
Americans. "Based on a timetable, transfer the responsibilities to Iraqi
government. This will agree to your interests, too."
He urged
countries to stop backing militants in Iraq, saying, "supporting
terrorists is the ugliest act that they can do." He did not specify
which
countries he was referring to.
Ahmadinejad said
"extremists should be dismissed [from the Iraqi government] no matter to
which group and ethnicity they belong to. This is the only way to
salvation."
"Enemies of Iraq are trying to create differences and
extend hostility among the Iraqi people," he said.
The United
States accuses Iran and its ally Syria of stirring up violence in Iraq.
Tehran denies this, saying it seeks calm in its neighbor and that an end
to the bloodshed can only come when U.S. forces withdraw.
Al-Maliki
and Talabani both have longtime ties with Iran. The Iraqi president has
been in Iran the past three days, meeting Ahmadinejad and the country's
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Talabani and Ahmadinejad
attended a ceremony for the signing of two
memorandums of
understanding for cooperation in education and
industry.
Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran "will stand by its Iraqi
brothers," saying "no one can divide nations of Iran and Iraq."