BAGHDAD, August 30 (IslamOnline.net & Net & News Agencies) – As what the Iraqi interim government calls "security talks" stumbled Monday, August 30, over the thorny issue of weapons' handover, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi bluntly played the card of the US-led "war on terror".

Talks between the Iraqi government and the office of firebrand Shiite scholar Moqtada Sadr, aimed at ending violence in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, were stumbling on the fate of the Mehdi Army's weapons, according to Iraqi police Monday.

Sadr City police chief Colonel Maaruf Alami told Agence France-Presse (AFP) a ten-point roadmap drafted by National Security Adviser Muwafaq Al-Rubaie had been delivered to Sadr's office Monday.

"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 neighborhood 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 neighborhood 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 Sadr City office, Sheikh Yusif Al-Nasir.

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

The Sadr City neighborhood was quiet on Monday morning.

Allawi said in an interview published in the Italian capital Rome Monday that the kidnap shows that no country can remain neutral in Iraq and choosing not to send troops to aid Baghdad is no guarantee against terrorism.

"No civilized country can draw back. The campaign against terrorism must be global one. Because the challenge really is global," the Corriere della Sera daily quoted Allawi as saying, according to AFP.

"Neutrality doesn't exist, as the kidnapping of the French journalists has shown," Allawi told the Italian newspaper.

France bitterly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq and resolved not to send any troops to the country, even in a peacekeeping capacity.

"The French are deluding themselves if they think they can remain outside of this. Today, the extremists are targeting them too," Allawi said.

Allawi has taken a radical position against Iraqi powers opposed to the presence of US-led troops on Iraqi soil and mounting bitter armed resistance, vowing to crush all such powers.