Rice urges Arab nations to do more to support Iraq

DEAD SEA, Jordan, Dec 1 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged moderate Arab states to find concrete ways to support Iraq's government, telling them they could not afford an Iraq that failed.

''Everybody recognizes that an Iraq that is stable and moving forward is going to be a positive thing and that we can't afford an Iraq that is not, an Iraq that fails,'' she said yesterday.

''I found a great deal of interest in what concretely could be done to support the Maliki government,'' she told reporters after meeting ministers of countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Jordan and Egypt at the Dead Sea resort.

She did not give details.

Rice had joined President George W Bush for breakfast with Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Amman.

The top US diplomat then went to Jericho in the West Bank to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, followed by talks in Israel with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. She urged both to extend a fragile ceasefire.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Arab ministers had voiced concern to her over Iraq.

''There is a need to support the Iraqi government,'' he said.

''The (US-led) coalition has a responsibility there and the Arab countries have to show an interest in defending Iraqi stability.'' The United States has long urged moderate Arab nations to do more to curb the violence in Iraq, which Washington says has been stoked up by Syria and Iran.

Rice said Arab help in rebuilding Iraq was welcome.

''The political support of groups like this is extremely important to an Arab state like Iraq,'' she said.

The United States is undertaking a thorough review of its tactics in Iraq, with a bipartisan panel set to offer recommendations to the White House next week.

Bush ''will then set out a direction that adjusts our policy appropriate to the circumstances that the Iraqis now face,'' Rice said of the review.

The United States needed to look at how best to help the Iraqi government take control. ''Today's meeting with Prime Minister Maliki and the president was very much in the spirit of where we are all thinking,'' she said.

''The Iraqis both need to and want to take responsibility sooner and more completely for the security situation.'' Today, Rice is to attend a meeting on Arab democracy and development issues hosted by Jordan and Russia. She is set to return to Washington later in the day.

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