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IRAQ WARS
Saudi, Qatar media attacks Iraq PM
by Staff Writers
Riyadh (AFP) April 3, 2012

Ukraine resumes deliveries of military vehicles to Iraq
Kharkiv, Ukraine (AFP) April 3, 2012 - Ukraine is ready to send 62 armoured personnel carriers to Iraq, fulfilling a 2009 order that had only been partially carried out, officials said Tuesday.

The state-owned Ukroboronprom group has prepared 62 BTR-4 vehicles for Iraq, the firm's executive director Dmytro Peregoudov said in a statement.

Iraqi officials are due to inspect the troop carriers by the end of April and the vehicles will be sent to Iraq soon after. The carriers have been made at a factory in Kharkiv in Ukraine's east.

Ukraine and Iraq signed a $550-million (410-million-euro) deal in 2009 for the delivery of about 400 troop carriers and about 10 AN-32 military transport planes.

Ukraine started delivering the carriers in April last year but the second part of the delivery was pushed back after numerous delays.

More than 5,000 Ukrainian troops served in Iraq between 2003 and 2007 and Washington pushed for the country to get the military order over rivals Poland, Russia and China.


Saudi and Qatari newspapers on Tuesday lashed out at Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over his implicit criticism of Saudi Arabia and Qatar for their calls to arm Syrian rebels.

"Gulf (states) should boycott Maliki and his government," wrote Tariq al-Homayed, the editor of Asharq al-Awsat, calling for the "punishment of all who stand with the tyrant of Damascus, first and foremost Maliki's government."

"Boycott him to prevent the emergence of a new Saddam or another Bashar," wrote Homayed in the Saudi owned pan-Arab daily, referring to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

The Saudi media campaign against Maliki came after the Iraqi prime minister said Baghdad rejected "any arming (of Syrian rebels) and the process to overthrow the Assad regime," arguing that the call by Qatar and Saudi to arm Syrian rebels "will leave a greater crisis in the region."

He also cautioned that "those countries that are interfering in Syria's internal affairs will interfere in the internal affairs of any country."

Maliki's comments followed what media reports said was an "official visit" to Qatar, which began on Sunday, by Iraq's fugitive vice president Tareq al-Hashemi, who is accused of running a death squad.

Another Saudi daily, Al-Riyadh, struck at Iraq's strong ties to neighbouring Iran and questioned Maliki's allegiances in its Tuesday editorial.

"Is Maliki a voice for Iran or the ruler of Iraq?" asked the editorial, noting that "the Syrian people revolted against injustices similar to those suffered by Iraq under Saddam."

The newspaper argued that Maliki appears more concerned with the rise to power of the Sunnis in Damascus.

The Syrian crisis has raised sectarian tensions, as its minority rulers are Alawites -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam -- who are trying to cling to power by brutally suppressing an uprising led by the country's majority Sunnis.

In Iraq, a Shiite government came to power after the 2003 US-led invasion ousted Saddam, whose Sunni regime marginalised the country's Shiites for decades.

Saudi's Al-Watan daily further described Maliki's prediction that Assad's regime "will not fall" as "laughable", noting that his stance on the year-long uprising in Syria is not "out of love for the Damascus regime but rather because of his bias towards the stance of (his) Iranian ally."

Maliki also came in for harsh remarks in Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq.

The newspaper slammed Maliki's "campaign" against Hashemi "and countries that sympathise with him."

"It is clear that the policy of this leader of the Shiite Dawa party is not just against the Sunni presence in the Iraqi administration, but also against every one whose opinion does not follow Maliki's way in managing Iraq," it said.

"Due to his ignorance when it comes to diplomatic relations, he went asking countries visited by the vice president not to welcome him, and to hand him over," it charged.

Al-Sharq further said that Maliki's behaviour "does not just reflect ignorance of diplomatic norms, but also ignorance of Arab and Iraqi traditions, which he must be lacking due to staying out of Iraq for a long part of his life."

Baghdad demanded Monday that Doha hand over Hashemi.

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Obama calls Iraqi PM Maliki
Washington (AFP) April 3, 2012 - US President Barack Obama called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Tuesday to congratulate him on the Arab summit held last week and to stress his support for a unified Iraq.

In a statement announcing the call, the White House termed last week's Arab summit, Iraq's diplomatic coming-out party following the full withdrawal of US troops late last year, a "success."

"The two leaders discussed the United States and Iraq's joint efforts to advance peace and security in the region as strategic partners," the statement said.

"President Obama expressed the United States' firm commitment to a unified, democratic Iraq as defined by Iraq's constitution," the statement said.

The US leader also told Maliki that he backed Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's call for a national conference this week to bridge sharp differences between rival political blocs in the country.

Qatar rejects Iraq demand to hand over VP Hashemi
Doha (AFP) April 3, 2012 - The Gulf state of Qatar has rejected Baghdad's demand to hand over Iraq's fugitive Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Khaled al-Attiyah said Tuesday.

"Diplomatic norms and the post of Hashemi prevent Qatar from doing such a thing," he said when asked about Baghdad's request for Doha to send the Sunni leader back to Iraq, where he is accused of running a death squad.

Hashemi, who arrived in Qatar on Sunday reportedly for an official visit, had been in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region since December.

"Mr. Hashemi came in his capacity as a vice president, and he continues to occupy this post, and has not been sentenced, or stripped of his title," Attiyah told reporters.

Iraq's Shiite-led government has slammed Doha's welcoming of Hashemi as "unacceptable." It also criticised Kurdistan's decision to let him leave the country as a "clear challenge to law and justice."

"The state of Qatar receiving a wanted person is an unacceptable act and Qatar should back off from this stance, and return him to Iraq," Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said in Baghdad on Monday.

Hashemi, who denies the allegations against him and says they are politically motivated, dismissed Iraq's demand.

"There has not been a judicial decision against me from any court, and the demand does not respect Article 93 of the constitution, which provides me with immunity," he told AFP in the Qatari capital on Monday.

The accusations were levelled against Hashemi the day after US forces withdrew from Iraq in December 2011, and sparked a festering political row.



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