Govt-Shia talks stumble on arms surrender

Sadr City police chief Colonel Maaruf Alami told AFP a ten-point roadmap drafted by National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaie had been delivered to Sadr's office yesterday.

"The talks are stumbling on the final point" which urges the rebel militia to hand over its weapons, Alami said.

The document calls for a seven-day truce, states that US troops should stop cracking down on Sadr's militia and enter the sprawling flashpoint neighbourhood only for reconstruction purposes.

It also demands that the Mehdi Army stop attacking US bases, as well as Iraqi security forces and translators.

The ten points also include a commitment to rebuild the impoverished neighbourhood and compensate residents who have been affected by months of fighting and adds that the Iraqi police will be responsible for conducting patrols in the area.

The letter was handed to the head of the firebrand cleric's Sadr City office, Sheikh Yusif al-Nasir.

The talks come three days after the end of a bloody standoff between the Mehdi Army and US troops in the holy city of Najaf.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed to crush any militiamen who refuse to disarm after top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani secured the withdrawal of Sadr's fighters from the central shrine towns of Najaf and Kufa.

But fighters left Najaf Friday without handing over their weapons, only hiding them in caches.

The militant stronghold was quiet on Monday morning.

AP adds: US military officials and representatives of rebel Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr held talks Sunday aimed at reducing violence in the restive Baghdad slum of Sadr City, a day after clashes there killed 10 people, officials said.

British forces in the southern city of Basra, also the site of recent fighting, held similar talks with al-Sadr officials there.

Oil exports from southern Iraq have come to a complete halt because of attacks on pipelines and are not likely to resume for at least a week, a senior Iraqi oil official said yesterday.

Oil flows out of the southern pipelines which account for 90 percent of Iraq's exports ceased late Sunday, an official from South Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity.