ARAB AFAIRS - May 27 - Iran And Iraq Agree To Close Off Border To 'Saboteurs'.

Iran's FM Manouchehr Mottaki, on a visit to Iraq, says the two countries have agreed to form a joint commission to oversee border issues and that its primary task will be to "block saboteurs" crossing their mutual border. Mottaki said: We plan to form a joint commission between Iran and Iraq to control our borders and block the way to saboteurs whose aim is to destabilize the security of the two countries", after talks with Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani. Mottaki, who was taking part in only the second visit by an official Iranian government delegation since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, said improved border controls would be part of a wide effort to build close ties between the countries, including $1 bn in Iranian economic assistance to Shi'ite and Kurdish areas of Iraq. The announcement in Najaf was made as US military commanders and diplomats were focusing new attention on what they said was strong evidence that a covert flow of weapons and money from Iran to Shi'ite militia groups in Iraq had fueled sectarian violence here. Action to tighten security on the weakly patrolled Iran-Iraq border is among the measures US officials have urged on the new Iraqi government, which is now led by PM Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The issue is fraught with political complexity in Iraq, where the Maliki government includes Shi'ite leaders with links to at least two militias. The militias have been accused of participating in a cycle of sectarian violence that has killed hundreds of people in Baghdad and other major cities in recent months, in revenge for the relentless attacks on Shi'ites by Sunni insurgent groups. US officials met with Maliki last week to brief him on what they contend are a range of clandestine Iranian efforts to gain influence in Iraq, and to urge the new government leader to take action to restrain that effort as part of his promise to curb all militias in Iraq. Maliki's action on this and other security issues has been curbed, at least to some degree, by the continuing jockeying among the governing parties over the government's top three security posts, which were left unfilled when his government took office a week ago. A senior US military official in Baghdad said Saturday that he expected the ministers of interior, defense and national security to be named "within two or three days". Similar predictions were made by Maliki and US officials the previous weekend. But candidates brought forward at midweek for two of the posts - a senior Shi'ite military officer for the interior post and a Sunni expatriate living in London for the Defense Ministry - failed to win approval by all the major groups involved, including senior US officials, who said that the candidates seemed unlikely to have enough authority to impose control. Maliki, who is acting as interim interior minister, has appointed another senior official to oversee the Defense Ministry in an acting capacity. But the delay in completing his government, and particularly in filling the security posts, has been an embarrassing start for a government that came to office under pressure to show it can be more effective than the departing government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari.