Iraqi optimism premature, official says

ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The wave of optimism spreading through the U.S. foreign policy community in regard to Iraq is premature, a Turkish foreign policy chief said Friday.

Ahmet Davutoglu, the top foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations that the ethnic and religious divisions in Iraq remain unresolved and may erupt in violence in the future.

"I cannot give a very optimistic picture (of Iraq)," he said. "There are many problems."

He blamed the U.S. policy of defining the strategy in Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines, with Shiite militias, Sunni paramilitary forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga exemplifying the lack of national identity.

"In order to have security in the country and stability, you have to have a national identity. An army and police force, security forces cannot have a sectarian identity," he said.

The Iraqi Constitution, he noted, "creates its own dilemma" by outlining issues in terms of ethnic and sectarian groups.

"Therefore, we work very hard to bring together all these ethnic groups inside Iraq and we try to contain the crisis through neighboring countries," Davutoglu said. "There should be an international commitment for the unity and stability of Iraq."