Baghdad, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the country’s deeply-divided political factions to resolve their political dispute through national dialogue to avoid growing tensions that could split the country.
“I am firmly convinced of the seriousness of the current circumstances which entail that we speed up efforts to sit on the table of brotherly and constructive dialogue,” Talabani said in a statement posted on his website and obtained by Xinhua on Sunday.
“I also see that if we fail to kick off such dialogue, it could lead to growing tensions and escalate the existing problems and risks,” Talabani said.
“Therefore I appeal to my colleagues, who were elected by the people to lead the political process, to respond to my call for the sake of the security and stability of our homeland,” he concluded.
Soon after the U.S. troops fully withdrew from Iraq late last year, Iraq plunged into serious political row as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought to arrest his political rival Tariq al- Hashimi, a leading member of the Sunni-backed political bloc of Iraqia, over alleged terror charges.
The Kurds, Iraqia bloc and Sadr movement loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have frequently accused Maliki’s Shiite- dominated government of killing the democratic process in the country by Baghdad’s bids to gain more power. They also accused Maliki of evading his commitments in implementing the terms of power-sharing deal that he earlier signed with rival parties.
The deal, also known as Arbil agreement, was brokered in November 2010 in Kurdistan region in northern the country.
It paved the way for forming Maliki’s current fragile partnership government after Iraqi political rivals ended their differences that lasted eight months following the parliamentary elections on March 7, 2010.