The need for Iraqi leaders to accelerate political reconciliation efforts to safeguard recent security gains in their country will be the main focus of talks between Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and President Barack Obama during a visit to Washington starting Tuesday. Al-Maliki left this morning from Baghdad and was enroute to Washington for an official visit to the United States. The U.S-Iraqi security pact, which took effect on Jan. 1; prospects for U.S. private investment in Iraq; and political reconciliation will top al-Maliki's discussions in Washington with Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, lawmakers and business leaders. A large part of Obama's Wednesday meeting with al-Maliki will be about political change that is needed for progress to occur in Iraq, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. «I have no doubt that that will take up a large part of the meeting with the prime minister,» he said.
