BAGHDAD &#8212 Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari urged Iraq’s neighbors Sunday to prevent “terrorists and killers” from crossing into his country and warned that the violence in Iraq could spill across its borders into other nations.

Zebari’s comments came during the opening of a daylong conference that brought to Baghdad officials from all of Iraq’s neighbors and other Mideast countries, as well as representatives from the U.N. and the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

It picked up from the first such conference in March, which saw the first direct U.S.-Iranian talks since the war began, focusing on border problems, Iraqi refugees and energy issues.

“Despite our emphasis on national reconciliation at home, we also need to reconcile with our neighborhood, with the international community at large,” Zebari told the group, adding it was a “critical period for us.”

“We need your support and your commitment,” he said.

Iraq’s appeal to its neighbors occurred on the eve of the start of congressional hearings in Washington by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and top commander Gen. David Petraeus, who are to deliver key reports on Iraq’s progress amid a debate over calls for American troop withdrawal.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said security has been improving but that they are not seeing significant progress politically.

But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disputed that claim at the meeting Sunday, saying the “Iraqi national unity government has achieved great victories in different fields as it works seriously to improve the economic situation, and has achieved major results despite the major economic destruction that we inherited from the former regime.”

Security was extraordinarily tight in central Baghdad where the meeting was taking place at the Foreign Ministry complex, with security forces blocking two main bridges linking the city’s eastern and western sectors to all but official traffic.

The Iranian and Syrian deputy foreign ministers headed their countries’ delegations while other regional countries were represented by their ambassadors, Zebari told the AP ahead of the meeting. In addition to neighbors Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, delegations from Egypt and Bahrain were present.

With Crocker in Washington, the U.S. was represented by the deputy chief of mission in Iraq, Patricia Butenis.

Zebari said they needed to talk about helping the Iraqi government bring security and stability to Iraq, but added that the country’s neighbors needed to “actively work on controlling the borders and prevent terrorists and killers from infiltrating across into Iraq.”