Iraq government ‘can end crisis’
Iraqi prime minister says rival parties in government must work to end violence.
Opposition
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“Let’s be honest – the security situation is a reflection of political disagreement” Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister |
Dhafir al-Ani, an opposition MP for the mainly-Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, disagreed with al-Maliki and told Aljazeera.net that the politicians were helpless and prisoners of the wills of their respective communities and militias.
Al-Ani said: “The politicians in Iraq created the militias and utilised them for their own purposes, but they became like Frankenstein’s monster. They are not listening to their creators and have their own agendas and feared warlords.
“We are not practicing proper parliamentary activities, because we are afraid from those in the street. Unfortunately, we have a violent, armed-to-the-teeth street.”
The Iraqi Accordance front is the third largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, after the Shia Unified Iraqi List, and the Kurdish bloc.
Arab summit
Foreign ministers of countries neighbouring Iraq will meet at the Arab League in Cairo on December 5 to talk about ways to stop the violence, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Sunday.
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“This meeting must come out with a clear Arab position on the current events in Iraq” Egyptian foreign ministry |
It will be the first such meeting since nine ministers – from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – met in the Iranian capital of Tehran in July.
The summit plans follow a meeting between Dick Cheney, the US vice president, and King Abdullah in Saudia Arabia, which is believed to have been part of a US attempt to seek help from Iraq‘s neighbours and also followed proposals that the US opens a dialogue with Iran and Syria about Iraq.
An Egyptian foreign ministry statement said: “This meeting must come out with a clear Arab position on the current events in Iraq … rejecting all forms of violence, fanaticism and sectarianism.”
But analysts say that with the exception of Iran, which has close relations with Shia Muslim politicians, the neighbours have limited influence over events in Iraq, where about 100 people a day are dying in sectarian and political violence.