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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi government negotiating with tribal leaders in Anbar, Sadr City |
| 2004-09-17 |
| Iraqi authorities are holding talks with tribal leaders in the western Anbar province and Baghdad's tense Sadr city in hopes that militias will hand over their weapons in exchange for a pullback of US troops, Iraq's vice president said. The talks are significant because they show that the government is trying to pacify hotspots with dialogue rather than using military means. "Dialogue is going on with Arab tribesmen in all parts of the country, and the latest visit by some of the brothers took place yesterday here in this house," Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari said. "I told them it is necessary that militias be disarmed and that this action would be followed by a multinational forces withdrawal." In a wide-ranging interview in his heavily secured Baghdad villa, al-Jaafari also downplayed that possibility that a trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might start soon because "the huge number of crimes that Saddam Hussein committed might take time to shed the light on them." He also said Iraqi authorities had arrested an undisclosed number of foreign fighters — but did not say when or where they had been seized. He said they were caught in Iraq and are being interrogated but "until now it has not been officially proven that they came for sabotage." He refused to give their nationalities. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |