Perspective: Iraq divided over unity conference

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's deepening sectarian divide threatened to derail planned national peace talks before they begin, as parties made their first boycott threats with less than a week to go.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government on Friday announced a National Reconciliation Conference for December 16, in a bid to stem a rising tide of murderous violence by Shiite and Sunni factions.

The urgency of the talks was underlined Saturday when a suspected Sunni suicide bomber detonated his car near a revered Shiite shrine in the central city of Karbala, killing six civilians and wounding 47 more, medics said.

Another 10 Iraqis were killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks around the country and the bodies of 35 murder victims were found in Baghdad.

The US military also announced the deaths of two more marines, bringing its dead since the March 2003 invasion to 2,927.

Initial reactions to the conference invitation from Iraq's political groups only served to emphasise the deep bitterness and suspicion they will take to the negotiating table -- if they attend at all.

The factions disagree about the guestlist, with some Sunni leaders arguing that former members of ousted president Saddam Hussein's Baath party should attend -- an idea fiercely opposed by the Shiites.

"They have to extend an invitation to the Baath party and to resistance parties. They deserve such an invitation," said Khalaf al-Alyan of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, a Sunni parliamentary bloc.

"The Baath party was the ruling party and has to be invited, otherwise who would you reconcile with?" he asked.

A lawmaker from Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc rejected this out of hand. Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish populations bore the brunt of Saddam's brutality when he was in power and they now favour purging Baathists.

"Our stand was obvious from the beginning. We will not sit at a table with the Saddamists and Baathists," said Saleh Hassan Issa al-Igaili.

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