President Jalal Talabani met recently with representatives of seven armed groups and is optimistic they may agree to lay down their arms, his office said yesterday. "I think we may reach an agreement with seven armed groups that visited me and I met with them," his office said in a statement without indicating when the meeting took place. Talabani's spokesman Kamran Qaradaghi refused to identify the seven groups, although they were presumed to be Sunni Arab insurgents.
It was the first time a senior Iraqi official has acknowledged meeting with figures from the insurgency, although US officials have said privately they have conferred directly with Iraqis who claimed to have contacts with insurgents. Last year, Talabani offered to meet with representatives of insurgent groups except Al-Qaeda in Iraq or Saddam Hussein loyalists. |