|
Shiites, Kurds Walk Out of Iraqi Talks
Shiite and Kurdish delegates stormed out of an Iraqi reconciliation conference Saturday, halting the effort to patch over ethnic and religious fault lines threatening to drag the country into a full civil war."They are insulting the Iraqi people and they are insulting the constitution on which several million Iraqis have voted," the senior Iraqi Shiite legislator, Jawad al-Maliki, told reporters, referring to other conference delegates. It was not clear who al-Maliki was referring to, but there is long-standing tension between the groups represented at the conference that began in Cairo on Saturday. Leaders of Iraq's Shiite and Sunni communities declined to attend. "They want the situation in Iraq to go back to the way it used to be so that the mass graves can return," al-Maliki said. Sunni leaders were expected to press ahead with demands that the Shiite-dominated government agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign troops and drastic amendments to the constitution ratified Oct. 15. They also want to "recognize" the resistance and "rebuild" Saddam Hussein's army in order to bring back his former officers. Shiites and Kurds instead insist that Sunni leaders denounce violence and distance themselves from the insurgency. Posted by: ed 2005-11-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=135438 |