SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Iraqi Prime Minister on Friday called for the third round of national dialogue to resolve “Iraq’s problems”, the state news agency reported, and stressed dialogue as the sole way to overcome the obstacles.
Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported that Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s intention for calling for dialogue is to solve Iraq’s problems while stressing that there is no way to resolve all the obstacles except for “national dialogue”.
Prime Minister said these during a televised speech in New York on the side lines of his participation in the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
“I ask the political forces to assume their historical responsibilities towards Iraq and take advantage of the opportunities for national dialogue,” Kadhimi said.
“There are those who wish the government to fail in everything because of personal disputes, so I urge them to settle these disputes away from the interests of the people,” He continued
Kadhimi had in mid-August called for a national dialogue involving main political leaders, although Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr did not agree to participate.
At least two rounds of talks have been already done but without the participation of Sadr, and he is still refusing to do so.
Sadr’s party, the Sadrist was the biggest winner in Iraq’s parliamentary election, which took place almost a year ago, in October, it claimed 73 seats in the parliament.
Sadr and his rival Shiite bloc, the Shiite Coordination Framework have been at odds since last year’s parliamentary elections.
The Sadrists won the largest share of seats in the October vote but failed to form a majority government.
MPs belonging to Sadr’s bloc later resigned from parliament and his supporters last month stormed the parliament building in Baghdad. He has demanded that parliament be dissolved and early elections held.
Tensions escalated sharply in late August when Sadr said he would quit politics, with his supporters storming an area in Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone in violence that killed 30 people.
