Sunnis boycott reconciliation conference

updated 3:38 p.m. ET March 18, 2008

BAGHDAD - Iraq's main Sunni bloc boycotted a conference Tuesday aimed at reconciling the nation's sectarian groups, a sign of the deep schisms still facing this country.

Members of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front said they would not participate in the conference until Shiite lawmakers address their political demands. They say Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has failed to release detainees not charged with specific crimes, has not disbanded Shiite militias and has not sufficiently included Sunni lawmakers in decision-making on security issues.

"How we can attend a reconciliation meeting?" said Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the Sunni front. "There are many points that are still not fulfilled."

The U.S. is pressing the Iraqis to achieve national reconciliation, warning that progress toward that goal is necessary to guarantee long-term American support.

High-level U.S. visits
The conference comes after visits by Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain to tout security gains and stress Washington's commitment to fighting insurgents in Iraq.

Cheney spent Monday night at the U.S. military base in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, before flying to Irbil in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq Tuesday. There, he was to meet with Massoud Barzani, head of the regional administration in the semiautonomous area. McCain traveled to Jordan on Tuesday.

Al-Maliki opened the reconciliation meeting a day after a suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers in the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 50 people, according to an official and witness. The blast was the deadliest in a series of attacks that left at least 79 Iraqis dead on Monday.

In his opening statement, al-Maliki said reconciliation was not intended to harm the interests of any group but was "a boat that saves us and takes us to safety."

"From the first day, we said national reconciliation is not a political slogan, but a complete strategical vision to reconstruct Iraq," al-Maliki said.

In his address, al-Maliki noted many in the government continued to doubt the success of reconciliation. But he urged lawmakers to view differences in opinion as political progress, not disagreement that threatened to unravel national unity.

A heated debate over differences, al-Maliki said, also could open the door to foreign influence and compromise Iraq's constitutional principles.

Sectarian divide over death sentences
He acknowledged in a later briefing for reporters that much work remains to bridge Iraq's sectarian divides.

In one case, Iraqi leaders have made little progress in resolving disagreements over the execution of three Saddam Hussein-era Sunni officials for their role in a campaign that left some 180,000 Iraqi Kurds dead in the 1980s.

Al-Maliki has been demanding that the death sentence against the three be carried out, but Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, and one of his two deputies, Sunni Arab Tariq al-Hashemi, disagree. They say one of the three, former defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie, should not be sent to the gallows because he was a soldier carrying out orders.

Last month, the presidential council said it had ratified the death sentence on another one of the three, Saddam's henchman and cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali."

Al-Maliki stood his ground on Tuesday. A statement by his office said all three, who are held in a U.S.-run detention facility, must be handed over to have their sentences carried out.

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