After Iraq, Cheney in Oman for Iran-focused talks

MUSCAT, Oman (AFP) — Fresh from a two-day surprise visit to Iraq, US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Oman late Tuesday for talks set to focus on containing Iran's influence and curbing its suspect nuclear program.

Cheney was to hold talks with Sultan Qaboos after working to rally top Iraqi political leaders behind plans for a US-Iraq long-term security pact and push them on legislation seen as key to quelling sectarian strife.

In the city of Arbil on the eve of the Iraq war's fifth anniversary, Cheney pushed a key Iraqi Kurd leader to back the long-range strategic partnership and work to pass laws to govern oil revenue sharing and upcoming elections.

His host, Kurdistan regional president Massoud Barzani, pledged that Kurds would be part of the "solution, not the problem" both in internal Iraqi politics and in the bloodied nation's relations with its neighbours.

That appeared to be a reference to Turkey, which has angered many Kurds by striking at northern Iraq-based Kurdish separatist fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) with US support.

"We are certainly counting on President Barzani's leadership to help us conclude a new strategic relationship between the United States and Iraq as well as advance crucial peaces of national legislation in the months ahead," said Cheney.

"We will continue to play our positive role, to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem," Barzani said through an interpreter.

"We will be part of the solution for all the efforts inside of Iraq and out for the neighbouring countries."

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Cheney had heard expressions of support for the US-Iraq strategic pact as well as national reconciliation laws from every major Iraqi political leader he met.

"I don't want to overstate it. The devil is in the details," the official said, but "there is a sense of urgency" among rival Shiite and Sunni leaders as well as Kurds over that agenda.

With just 10 months before the White House changes hands, the vice president was on a nine-day trip to the Middle East to seek progress on the battered peace process and win support on Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Asked about Cheney's agenda in Oman, a senior aide had said on Friday that "Iran has got to be very high on that list," noting that the two countries are co-guardians of the strategic Strait of Hormuz entrance to the oil-rich Gulf.

"The Omanis, like a lot of other people, are concerned by the escalating tensions between the rest of the world community and Iran, by some of Iran's activities, particularly in the nuclear field, but outside its borders as well," the official said.

Cheney's other scheduled stops were Saudi Arabia, which he urged Monday to to send an ambassador to Baghdad to undercut Iranian influence there; Israel and the West Bank; and Turkey, a staunch NATO ally that backs US efforts in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, the vice president repeatedly promised Washington's "unwavering" support for advancing democracy there and repeatedly denounced calls from the White House's Democratic critics to pledge to draw down US forces if they carry the November US elections.

He spent the night at Balad Air Base north of Baghdad and told thousands of troops that Iraqis could trust the United States as "a nation that accepts a hard job and keeps at it even if others may tire of the effort."

"We have no intention of abandoning our friends, or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans," said Cheney, a key architect of the March 20, 2003 US-led invasion.

In Arbil, he said the United States and Iraq's Kurds had built up a "special friendship" during an operation that created no-fly zones over Kurdish areas after the 1991 Gulf War to protect them from ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's brutal campaigns of repression and gas attacks.

He said nothing about US support for Turkey's major air and ground campaign last month on the PKK, an operation branded by Iraqi Kurds and the Baghdad government as an attack on the nation's sovereignty.

A series of bloody attacks marked Cheney's visit to Iraq, including a bombing near a Shiite shrine in the city of Karbala on Monday that killed 52 people.

On Tuesday, insurgents killed at least seven people in attacks across the country, including two policemen in Baghdad, security officials said.