Allawi to promote Iraq election in Jordan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-01 09:19

Iraq's interim prime minister went to Jordan on Tuesday for meetings with tribal figures and other influential Iraqis in a bid to encourage Sunni Muslims to participate in the Jan. 30 elections, but he ruled out contacts with insurgent leaders and former members of Saddam Hussein's deposed regime.

An Iraqi woman reads election posters in the southern Iraqi town of Basra Tuesday Nov. 30, 2004. Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will travel to Jordan on Tuesday to meet with Iraqis outside the country as part of attempts to get as many Iraqis as possible to participate in upcoming elections. [AP]

Insurgents targeted U.S. troops Tuesday in Baghdad and in and around Beiji, a city north of the capital, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding at least 20 other people, including three U.S. soldiers. Three Iraqi children aged 3, 4 and 5 were killed when two mortar rounds struck their neighborhood in Baqouba, the U.S. military said.

The attacks came as the U.S. military announced that its November death toll reached at least 135. That figure equaled the highest number of U.S. deaths in a single month since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who arrived in Amman late Tuesday, sought to play down expectations that his meetings would mark a breakthrough in curbing the violence, saying Jordan was simply the first stop on a tour that would take him to Germany and Russia.

Before leaving Baghdad, Allawi said his government would pursue contacts with "tribal figures" and other influential Iraqis to encourage broad participation in the elections, which some Sunni clerics have threatened to boycott.

U.S. Specialist Paul Sakala, from the 4th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, fires a 120mm mortar at insurgents near Forward Operating Base Wilson, north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, in this picture taken on November 29, 2004. As well as near daily attacks on Iraqi security forces and civilians, November has been one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops, with 134 killed. The highest death toll was in April this year, when 135 soldiers and Marines were killed. Picture taken on November 29, 2004. [Reuters]

But Allawi branded reports that he would meet with former Baath party figures as "an invention by the media," although word of such contacts came last week from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. Former Baath party leaders are believed to form the core of the insurgency.

Ministry officials had said that Arab governments urged the Iraqi authorities to make contacts with Iraqi exiles and opposition figures during a conference last week at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheik.

Arab officials fear that without some overture by the Iraqi government toward Sunni Arab insurgents, many Sunnis may boycott the Jan. 30 elections, calling into question the legitimacy of the new administration.

Most Arab countries are majority Sunni, while an estimated 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people are Shiites. Bahrain offered to host an Iraqi reconciliation conference.

On Tuesday, however, Allawi told the Iraqi National Council, a government advisory and oversight group, that there would be "no conference in Amman" but that his government wanted contacts with "important tribes," many of which maintained links to Saddam's regime.

He mentioned by name two tribal figures — both sons of a prominent sheik from the insurgent-plagued Ramadi area west of Baghdad. However, Ramadi residents said the family is known for its ties to the Americans and that some members moved to Jordan after suicide attacks on their family compound.

Allawi's staff declined to discuss planned meetings in Amman or to explain the apparent inconsistencies. However, it appeared the government may have been reluctant to pursue reconciliation with Saddam loyalists — at least publicly — because of pressure from Shiites.

Another meeting is scheduled in Amman after Allawi returns from Moscow on Dec. 7. He is to see 120 Iraqis from different segments of the political spectrum, most of whom live in Jordan and abroad, organizers said. An Iraqi Embassy diplomat confirmed the meeting.

Key Shiite leaders are wary of moves by Allawi, a secular Shiite, to bring former Baath members into the government's security services because of bitter memories of Saddam's bloody 1991 crackdown on Shiites.

"Unfortunately, there has been some leniency during the past three months, which allowed Baathists to enter government departments, the military and security agencies," said Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite politician.

Nevertheless, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the National Council on Tuesday that the government recognized the need to "widen the scope of participation" in the election to those groups "that renounce violence and terrorism."

Zebari said Allawi would meet with 25 to 35 "personalities," mostly from the Ramadi area.

"We still think that national reconciliation is necessary and vital but we also make a distinction," Zebari said. "If there are people who are accused and are known for what they have committed ... these people should be tried according to the laws."

Shiites, long suppressed in Iraq, are expecting to take control of the new government by sheer force of numbers, a prospect that has alarmed many Sunni Arabs and Kurds, each of which comprises about 20 percent of the population.

Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been encouraging formation of a united Shiite ticket.

However, a coalition of 38 Shiite political parties broke off negotiations Tuesday with al-Sistani's supporters, claiming the ayatollah's aides were favoring "extremists" in awarding positions on the list.

"We don't want to be an extension of Iran inside Iraq," said Hussein al-Mousawi, spokesman of the Shiite Political Council.

Al-Mousawi said his group, which includes the Iraqi National Council of Ahmad Chalabi, would appeal directly to al-Sistani "because we believe that the ayatollah is looking for an assembly that represents all Iraqis and is not dominated by extremists."

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