Biden Urges Dialogue between Feuding Iraqi Leaders
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden urged leaders of Iraq's feuding political and sectarian factions Sunday to convene a "dialogue" to head off a worsening political crisis.
Biden, President Barack Obama's pointman on Iraq, has made a flurry of calls to Iraqi leaders this week, urging them to mend their fences after the Shiite president, Nouri al-Maliki, accused his Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, of hiring bodyguards to run a death squad.
In calls to Maliki on Sunday and to Kurdish leader Massud Barzani on Saturday, Biden "exchanged views ... on the current political climate in Iraq and reiterated our support for ongoing efforts to convene a dialogue among Iraqi political leaders," the White House said in a statement.
Biden also offered condolences on a spate of attacks in Baghdad on Thursday that killed over 60 people. The strikes and the growing political row have heightened sectarian tensions just a week after the last U.S. soldier of a garrison that once numbered 170,000 left Iraq and entered Kuwait.
Hashemi, holed up at an official guesthouse of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in the country's autonomous Kurdish region after an arrest warrant was issued against him, acknowledged earlier that his guards may have carried out attacks. But he has steadfastly denied any involvement.
Asked if he would return to Baghdad to face trial, Hashemi told Agence France Presse: "Of course not," raising the prospect of fleeing Iraq. The 69-year-old attributed his refusal to travel to the capital to poor security and the politicization of the justice system.
Iraqiya, the bloc of Hashemi and deputy premier Saleh al-Mutlak that is part of Maliki's national unity government, has boycotted parliament and the cabinet in protest at Maliki's alleged centralization of power.
Meanwhile The New York Times, citing senior U.S. administration officials, reported that the United States is weighing a far more subdued role in Iraq, and has no intention to send U.S. troops back to the country.
