Kurdistan shelters Baghdad defectors

Written on December 21, 2011 by Editor in Iraq, KRG

News and Comment by The Kurdistan Tribune:

Following the bomb explosion two weeks ago in front of the gate of the Green Zone in Baghdad, Nuri Maliki, the Iraqi prime minster accused Tariq Hashimi, the vice-president, of instigating the plot. Malilki accused the Iraqia List of carrying out that terrorist act in an attempt to kill the prime minister and, for this alleged offence, the office of Nuri Maliki issued a warrant for the arrest of Tariq Hashimi. Hashimi escaped to Kurdistan last Friday night where he told the reporters that he is prepared to face a trial if it can be heard on KRG territory. This situation has plunged Iraq into an unprecedented political crisis and it occurs within days of the American withdrawal.

The Iraqi TV station Iraqia broadcast an interview with two of Hashimi’s bodyguards claiming that they had played a role in terrorist acts in Baghdad. Hashimi refuted this and told reporters that this is a fabrication by Nuri Malik’s party to mislead the public.

Meanwhile the Iraqi deputy prime minster Saleh Mutlaq told reporters that he has asked the Iraqi parliament to withdraw its confidence in prime minister Maliki. He is in Erbil, arriving in the same convoy as Tariq Hashimi. Mutlaq described Maliki as a dictator.

Another leader of the Iraqia List, Ayad Alawai, has visited the Iraqi president Jalal Talabani in Sulaymani.

This situation in Bagdad is fragile and could ignite into the civil war which is currently simmering in Baghdad and the south of Iraq. What is happening in Iraq is not about politics and preserving the rule of law or pursuing the national interest. On the contrary it is about a conflict between the two main sects of Iraqi society, Sunni and Shia.