President Jalal Talabani has called for a meeting of Arab interior ministers to devise a unified position against terrorism, a statement said Sunday. Talabani made the proposal Saturday night in a phone call to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the statement quoted Kamran Qaradaghi, Talabani's office manager, as saying. Mubarak supported the idea, it added. Such a meeting could discuss effective ways to confront terrorism, a problem facing most countries in the region, Qaradaghi said. Talabani also offered his condolences for the reported death of Egypt's top envoy to Iraq, Ihab al-Sherif, saying he was a victim of "a terrible criminal act," the statement said. A report of the Associated Press said the Iraqi president also condemned the deadly London bombings in a message of condolences he sent to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In his message, the statement said Talabani called terrorism "an international plague."
