Iraq calls for Gulf security pact to include Iran

IRAQ:Iraq yesterday called on Gulf states to form a regional security pact which would include Iran.

Iraq's national security adviser, Muaffak al-Roubaie, told senior Gulf officials meeting at a security conference in the Bahraini capital: "It is extremely important to have regional reconciliation rather than heightened sectarian tension."

He said security in the region is "indivisible. You cannot stabilise Iraq and destabilise Iran."

On Saturday, US defence secretary Robert Gates called on Gulf governments to exert pressure on Tehran to halt uranium enrichment and said Iran remains a danger although a US intelligence report released last week revealed Iran had suspended nuclear weapons development in 2003 and has not resumed this effort.

Delegates from Gulf states hosting US military and naval facilities responded by saying the US was hypocritical for refusing to tackle Israel's nuclear arsenal while insisting that Iran shut down its nuclear programme which has not produced weapons. "Not considering Israel a threat to security in the region is considered [ by the Arabs] a biased policy that is based on a double standard," said Abdul- Rahman al-Attiyah, secretary general of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council.

Bahraini minister of labour Majeed al-Alawi asked Mr Gates whether he thought the Israeli "nuclear weapon is a threat to the region".

Mr Gates responded that he did not and argued that the Israeli government was more responsible than that in Tehran.

He said Israel "is not training terrorists to subvert its neighbours" or shipping weapons to Iraq "to kill thousands of innocent civilians. So I think that there are significant differences in terms of both the history and the behaviour of the Iranian and Israeli governments".

Qatari prime minister Shaikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani retorted. "We can't really compare Iran with Israel. Iran is our neighbour, and we shouldn't really look at it as an enemy," he said.

"For 50 years Israel has taken [ Arab] land, expelling the Palestinians, and intervened [ in their affairs] under the pretext of security."

He called on Washington to hold talks with Tehran on its nuclear programme.