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Moderate Arab Countries Support US Plan for Iraq


U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has won support from moderate Arab countries for the U.S. plan on stabilizing Iraq.

Rice met Tuesday in Kuwait with the foreign ministers of six Arab Gulf states, plus Egypt and Jordan.

Kuwait's foreign minister, Mohammad al-Sabah, said the group considers the U.S. plan to send 20-thousand more troops to Iraq as a way to stabilize Baghdad and prevent the country from sliding into civil war.

Rice and her Arab colleagues also issued a statement that implicitly condemned Iranian interference in Iraq.

The document did not mention Iran by name. But Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah made it clear who the statement is directed at. He said the statement calls for all countries to stop interfering in Iraq's internal affairs.

The United States accuses Iran of providing material support to insurgents, and of allowing terrorists to use Iranian territory to cross into and out of Iraq.

Secretary Rice is on a Middle East trip that has also taken her to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

She is scheduled to meet with Kuwait's foreign minister in Kuwait City Wednesday before departing for talks in Berlin with Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. She also holds consultations in London before returning to Washington Friday.

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