TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday to press for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.

Khamenei also argued it was the United States that was to blame for the ongoing violence in Iraq, amid efforts by Talabani to win Iranian help in combating the insurgency ravaging his country. "The Islamic Republic of Iran holds the American government responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people and all the crimes and assassinations now being committed in Iraq," Khamenei was quoted as saying by official media.

"The presence of foreign troops is damaging for the Iraqis, and the Iraqi government could ask for their departure by proposing a timetable," Khamenei asserted, adding that "the US and Britain will eventually have to leave Iraq with a bitter experience."