Spokesman: U.S. Ambassador seeks meeting with al-Dhari, sends request through back channels

Nouri al-Maliki, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr,
Harith al-Dhari and Massoud Barzani

AMMAN, Jordan: The head of an influential Iraqi Sunni association received a request to meet with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq but will only do so if an Arab League representative is present and if the meeting is held in Jordan, the group's spokesman said on Saturday.

Mohammed Bashar al-Faydhi, a spokesman for the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, said Harith al-Dhari received the request to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad from the "Arab side," not the Americans. He did not elaborate.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said Khalilzad has not met with al-Dhari and could not comment on whether a meeting was planned.

"If the meeting between Al-Dhari and Zalmay Khalilzad is materialized, we do not want it to be for talking only. We want concrete steps to end the American occupation and the suffering of the Iraqi people," al-Faydhi said.

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

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