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| Iraq |
| Sunnis end boycott |
| 2007-12-03 |
| Iraq must take advantage of improved security and enact laws aimed at national reconciliation or risk a resumption of sectarian bloodshed, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said on Sunday. Violence has fallen sharply over the past few months in Iraq after Washington deployed an additional 30,000 troops. But Iraqi leaders have so far made scant progress passing laws aimed at reconciling majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs. Political tensions also escalated in recent days after the largest Sunni Arab bloc walked out of parliament to protest what it said was the house arrest of their leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi. The bloc called off the boycott on Sunday when Dulaimi was allowed to leave his house for the first time in three days. "The security surge has delivered significant results," Negroponte told a news conference in Baghdad at the end of a six-day tour of Iraq. "Now progress on political reconciliation, including key national legislation as well as economic advances, is needed to consolidate the gains. If progress is not made on these fronts we risk falling back toward the more violent habits of the past." With attacks at their lowest levels in nearly two years, attention has focused on whether the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki can reach an accommodation with disaffected Sunni Arabs. In a sign of the sectarian divide, the Sunni Arab Accordance Front called the boycott of parliament after Dulaimi was confined to his house following the arrest of his son and dozens of bodyguards on suspicion of links to a car bomb. But Dulaimi was escorted from home on Sunday by National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie and brought to a hotel in the heavily fortified "Green Zone" government and diplomatic compound, where he called an end to the boycott. |
| Posted by:Fred |