Iraq PM warns Sunnis could be shut from power

[ via Yahoo News ] 22 Dec

Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority rejected a call for all-party talks on Wednesday, ignoring U.S. pressure for dialogue to resolve a sectarian crisis that has erupted since American forces left the country this week.

With fears mounting that the nation of 30 million might one day fragment in chaos in the absence of the U.S. troops who toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned Saddam's fellow Sunnis they faced exclusion from power if they walked out on his ruling coalition.

The main Sunni-backed party, furious at terrorism charges leveled by the Shi'ite-run authorities against Iraq's Sunni vice president on the day Americans left, rejected Maliki's call for all-party talks in the coming days and vowed to try and unseat the prime minister in parliament, a move unlikely to succeed.

Iraq sits astride a Sunni-Shi'ite faultline running through the Middle East, fuelling mutual accusations of foreign influence, whether from Shi'ite Iran to the north or from the Sunni-ruled Arab states to the south.

Read more: Yahoo News

Read more »

Iraqi PM asks Kurds to hand over Vice-President Hashemi

[ via BBC News / Middle East ] 21 Dec

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has urged the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq to hand over fugitive Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi.

An arrest warrant was issued for Iraq's most senior Sunni Arab politician on Monday on terrorism charges. Mr Hashemi denies the charges and his entire political bloc is boycotting parliament and the cabinet.

Tensions between Sunnis and the Shia Arab majority appear to be coming to a head, a BBC correspondent says.

Mr Hashemi is currently in Irbil, under the protection of the Kurdistan regional government. The warrant was issued a day after US troops pulled out of Iraq.

Read more at: BBC News / Middle East

Read more »