Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called on Muslim countries Friday to hold an urgent meeting to discuss the "catastrophe" in Iraq, particularly the 2-week standoff in the holy city of Najaf. Khatami urged the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference to hold an emergency summit and said immediate action should be taken to end the escalating violence in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, where militiamen loyal to militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces. "What is happening in Iraq is a spiritual and human catastrophe and immediate action must be taken to stop the spread of the catastrophe, particularly in Najaf," Khatami said in a telephone conversation with the head of the OIC Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
| "He surrendered? It's a catastrophe, all right!" |
On Friday, the Najaf uprising, centered on the revered Imam Ali Shrine, appeared to be drawing to an end as militants from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army removed weapons from the holy site. It was unclear how Friday's apparent easing of the crisis in Najaf would affect Khatami's summit call. Kharrazi first raised his meeting idea in a telephone call to Jordanian counterpart Marwan Muasher on Wednesday, but Jordan's response was not immediately made public. The Syrian government as a good lap dog should supported Kharrazi's call, Syria's official news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry official as saying. Syria has been a loud opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In Tehran, Iranians staged street protests Friday over the violence in Najaf, the third holiest city to Shiite Muslims after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and condemned "the slaughter of the Iraqi people and the desecration of holy sites and cities of the country by the U.S. military in Iraq." The demonstrators also described Iraq's interim government as "illegitimate" and a "puppet" of the United States, IRNA reported, and urged Muslim countries to dispatch a military force to defend Najaf's holy sites.
| We can guess how that went over in various Arab capitals. |
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