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  • IRAQ: Iranian support for militias in Iraq rising - U.S

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IRAQ: Iranian support for militias in Iraq rising - U.S

Iranian support for militias who are destabilising Iraq has risen since the United States and Iran held a breakthrough round of talks in Baghdad in May, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said on Tuesday. Ryan Crocker told a news conference after talks in Baghdad on Iraq's security crisis with his Iranian counterpart that results on the ground "are not encouraging." "The fact is, and we made very clear in today's talk, that over the roughly two months we have actually seen militia-related activities that can be attributed to Iranian support go up and not down," Ryan Crocker told a news conference after holding a second round of talks with Hassan Kazemi-Qomi for several hours. There was no immediate response from the Iranian delegation. Washington accuses Shi'ite Muslim Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq. Iran denies the charge and blames the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 for the bloodshed between Iraq's majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki earlier urged the two sides to help Iraq and warned that insurgent groups like al Qaeda were moving to other countries after they were hit in Iraq. The first round of talks between Crocker and Kazemi-Qomi on May 28 had ended a long diplomatic freeze between the two countries. Crocker refused to be drawn on whether there would be a third round. The latest round took place less than two months before Crocker and U.S. military commander General David Petraeus have to present a crucial report to the U.S. Congress on Iraq's political and security progress. Underscoring the unrelenting violence in Iraq, a suicide car bomber killed 26 people and wounded 70 in a crowded market near a maternity hospital in the Shi'ite town of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. Sectarian violence and worsening chaos in Iraq has pushed the United States and Iran, which have not had diplomatic ties since shortly after Iran's 1979 revolution, to seek common ground. Maliki's fractured government is under growing pressure from Washington to meet a series of political benchmarks aimed at promoting national reconciliation before Congress receives the progress report in mid-September. ends

ITN Source | July 25, 2007Watch more videos from ITN Source

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