BAGHDAD: AP- A prominent Shiite leader said Monday that setting up federal
regions in Iraq would solve the country’s problems, adding that Shiites are
being subjected to mass killings but they should not retaliate by using
violence.
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite bloc in the 275-member parliament, was
speaking at a Shiite mosque in central Baghdad to mark Ashoura, one of the
holiest days in the Shiite calendar commemorating the 7th century death of the
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)’s grandson Imam Hussein. Thousands of people dressed in
black in a sign of mourning attended the ceremony at the Khulani Mosque.
“I reaffirm that the establishing of regions will help us in solving many
problems that we are suffering from. Moreover, it represents the best solution
for these problems,” al-Hakim said. “We affirm the necessity of establishing the
south and centre and Baghdad regions after the people vote on it.”
“I sympathize with our Sunni brothers in their ordeal with the terrorists as I
sympathize with the Shiites in their ordeal with the terrorists. I reject the
deportations of Sunnis from their houses and the same applies with the Shiites.
I condemn the killing of Sunnis as I condemn the killing of the Shiites,” he
said referring to thousands of families forced out of their homes for sectarian
reasons.
Central regions south of Baghdad and the southern Iraqi provinces are
predominantly Shiites and al-Hakim has called in the past for setting up the
“region of the centre and the south.” The predominantly Shiite south and Kurdish
north have been relatively safer than the mixed provinces such as Baghdad and
Diyala, that witnessed sectarian killings, or the Sunni regions of Anbar and
Salahuddin where insurgents are active.
Shiites and Kurds are Iraq’s strongest proponents of federalism, enshrined in a
new constitution adopted in 2005. Iraq’s Kurds and Shiites combine for about 80
percent of Iraq’s 26 million population. They suffered the most under Saddam
Hussein’s ousted Sunni-led regime. Sunni Arabs, however, see federalism as a
prelude to partitioning the country into a Kurdish north, a Shiite south,
leaving them in a central Iraq bereft of oil and other natural resources.
BAGHDAD: AP- A prominent Shiite leader said Monday that setting up federal
regions in Iraq would solve the country’s problems, adding that Shiites are
being subjected to mass killings but they should not retaliate by using
violence.