ARAB AFFAIRS - Sept 12 - Tehran Offers Baghdad Assistance On Security.

Iran offers to help establish security and stability in Iraq after the Iraqi PM Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, hold talks in Tehran on his first official visit here. Maliki and Iran's Pres Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gave few details about their talks, except to say that their countries, which fought a war from 1980 to 1988, had agreed to cooperate in political, economic and security ties. Maliki had been expected to tell fellow Shi'ite Muslim leaders in Iran that Tehran should not interfere in Iraqi affairs. Washington has accused Iran of backing militants fighting US troops in Iraq. "We will give our full assistance to the Iraqi government to establish security" in Iraq, Ahmadinejad said at a joint news conference after meeting with Maliki. "Strengthening security in Iraq means strengthening security and stability in the region". Maliki, speaking through a translator, said, "This visit will be useful for cooperation between Iran and Iraq, in all political, security and economic fields". The two sides signed an agreement covering these areas. Shortly before starting the two-day visit, an Iraqi spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said Maliki would

bluntly tell Tehran not to interfere in Iraq, though he stopped short of endorsing US accusations of Iranian "meddling". "We want to pass a message to the Iranian leaders that Iraq needs good relations with neighboring countries, without interference in our internal affairs", Dabbagh said. Maliki is expected to meet on Wednesday with Iran's supreme leader, Ayat Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, and the influential former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. An Iraqi official said Maliki might also meet with Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. Since forming a national unity government four months ago, Maliki has vowed to curb militant Shi'ite factions, some of whom also have links with movements in Iran, as part of efforts to avert civil war with Saddam Hussein's once-dominant Sunni minority. Some leaders in Tehran are also close to Shi'ite Iraqi leaders like the theologian Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is seen as particularly hostile to the occupying forces. "We understand that the violence in Iraq is being fed and financed by others", Dabbagh said before the trip. "Some of them are countries, some are groups. We'd like neighbouring countries to share in stopping such things coming to Iraq". Maliki's visit follows trips to Arab states run by Sunni Arabs who view with suspicion Iraq's Shi'ite majority and its ties to Iran, which is Shi'ite and non-Arab. The rise of the Shi'ite majority has brought to power in Iraq many leaders who spent long years in exile in Iran. Though Maliki was mostly based in Syria, many of those close to him in the Dawa party found refuge in Iran. The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in the Kazakh capital gathered religious leaders and officials from across the world to seek ways to prevent conflicts based on religious differences. Twenty-nine delegations are representing Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and other faiths. The congress, which is scheduled for two day, is expected to adopt a declaration calling for all religions to spread the message of tolerance and understanding as a way to prevent violence. "Terrorism emerges in an environment when some people enjoy security and other people live in fear", said Abdullah bin Abdulmoshid al-Turki of the Muslim World League. Yona Metzger, chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Israel, called for the release of three Israeli soldiers, one held by militants linked to Hamas and the other two by Hizbullah guerrillas. Their capture provoked the Israeli summer offensives into the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Ecumenical Patriarch BartholomewI, leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, called for accepting the world's diversity and pluralism and to "learn to live in them and learn how to grow in them without losing our identity and compromising ourselves".