BAGHDAD, June 26: The Iraqi prime minister’s plan for national reconciliation came in for criticism from both sides of the sectarian divide on Monday, a day after parliament accepted a compromise strategy that is short on crucial detail.
Iraq’s most senior Sunni politician, Vice-President Tareq Al-Hashemi, complained that the plan set no withdrawal date for US occupying forces.
He also said Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was wrong to rule out peace negotiations with followers of Saddam Hussein.
“Leaving the issue of a timetable (for US withdrawal) vague,” Hashemi told Reuters, “is telling the resistance: ‘continue your fighting to liberate Iraq’.”
US commanders are keen to leave but see withdrawal taking years yet with civil war a threat from various armed groups.
In another camp, an aide to fiery Shia cleric and militia leader Moqtada Al-Sadr said the 24-point plan presented to parliament on Sunday did not go far enough to punish Saddam’s Baathist supporters and should also include provisions to ensure the release of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia leaders from jail.
Sahib Al-Amery told reporters in Najaf that Sadr’s movement, accused by Sunnis of attacks on them, welcomed the plan but said its proposals to soften measures barring Baathists from office must be scrapped in favour of tougher sanctions on them.
Like Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party, Sadr’s movement is part of the broad national coalition formed over months of wrangling following an election in December.
Bitter ethnic and sectarian divisions remain, however, amid violence that officials said on Monday had caused over 130,000 to register for state aid as internal refugees since bloodshed in late February, an increase of over 30,000 in the past month.
The true number fleeing attacks and threats is higher since the data do not include the many who do not seek official assistance or head abroad.
Sunni leaders have complained that Maliki failed to lay out clear plans for curbing Shia and Kurdish militias.
Hashemi criticised him for ruling out peace talks with not only the Al Qaeda members but also with Baathists and other Sunni guerillas:
“If you want to achieve national reconciliation you can’t include some groups from peace talks and exclude others.
“You have to talk to Saddam Hussein loyalists, Baathists, nationalists. Everybody who wants to participate in the political process should be welcomed,” the vice-president said.
Talk of a sweeping amnesty offer before Maliki’s much awaited speech to parliament had prompted vocal complaints from US politicians anxious not to be seen by US voters condoning the exoneration of killers of American soldiers.—Reuters
