Work begins on new trilateral Iraq security panel

BAGHDAD, July 25 (Reuters) US and Iraqi officials began working today on how tt set up a panel with Iran to ease Iraq's security crisis.

An agreement to set up the security committee appeared to be the only positive outcome from talks between US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi-Qomi in Baghdad yesterday.

The panel will investigate issues such as support for Shi'ite militias and al Qaeda in Iraq.

A US embassy spokesman said political and military representatives had begun working on how to set up the a committee and areas which it would investigate.

''They'll talk to the Iraqis, who will then talk to the Iranians and we'll see how we proceed from there,'' the embassy spokesman said.

Crocker accused Iran of increasing support for Shi'ite militias involved in Iraq's unrelenting violence in the two months since both sides broke a diplomatic freeze lasting almost 30 years with a first round of talks on Iraq in May.

The Iraqi delegation at the talks was led by Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. Members of that delegation are also working on how to establish the committee, officials said.

Washington accuses Shi'ite Muslim Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq. Iran denies the charge and blames the US-led invasion in 2003 for the bloodshed between Iraq's majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs.

Crocker and US military commander General David Petraeus have to present a crucial report to the US Congress on Iraq's political and security progress within two months.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's fractured coalition government is under pressure from Washington to meet political benchmarks designed to promote national reconciliation before Congress receives the progress report.

REUTERS SBC KN1710