IRAQ:US president George Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki postponed for a day their crisis talks on Iraq, but officials played down any link between the schedule change and a memo suggesting tensions between the two leaders.
A US official denied the cancellation of a dinner last night in the Jordanian capital Amman was a snub by Mr Maliki in response to a New York Times story that carried a leaked White House report criticising the Iraqi leader.
"It was going to be more of a social meeting anyway," White House counsellor Dan Bartlett told reporters after Mr Bush arrived in Amman, referring to the three-way dinner that would have included Jordan's King Abdullah.
"The president and prime minister Maliki will have a very robust and lengthy dialogue tomorrow morning."
Mr Bush did have dinner with King Abdullah, who this week said "something dramatic" must come from the talks on Iraq. Jordanian officials said the cancellation was at their request so Mr Bush and the king could focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr Maliki's trip to Amman had been clouded by the leaked White House memo questioning his ability to rescue Iraq from turmoil that claims scores of lives daily, including more than 200 killed in a bomb and mortar attack last week on the Baghdad stronghold of Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The Iraqi leader's standing had also been eroded by the loss of a key Shia ally in Mr Sadr, who leads the Mahdi Army militia. Mr Sadr carried out his threat to boycott parliament and Mr Maliki's coalition if the premier met the US president.
Mr Sadr's faction, which helped elect Mr Maliki to his post, denounced his visit to see Mr Bush as "a provocation to the Iraqi people". It was not clear how long the boycott would last.
Mr Bush, who arrived in Amman after attending a Nato summit in Latvia, is himself under growing pressure to change course to prevent Iraq from dissolving in a maelstrom of sectarian strife and to secure an honourable exit for 140,000 US troops.
The crisis summit with Mr Maliki had been hastily arranged and Mr Bush also changed his schedule to see the Iraqi leader.
While in Latvia, Mr Bush vowed not to pull troops out "before the mission is complete".