Iraqi Shi'ite, Sunni officials meet in Finland for peace seminar

Above: Helsinki, Finland. Below: The major players -- Nuri al-Maliki (Prime Minister, Shiite), Tariq al-Hashemi (one of two Vice Presidents, Sunni), Moqtada al-Sadr ('fiery' anti-American cleric, Shiite), Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim (head of the largest Shiite coalition), Jalal Talabani (President of Iraq, Kurd, Qadiri Sufi sect of Sunnism), and Massoud Barzani (President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Naqshbandi Sufi sect of Sunnisim). The largest Sunni bloc recently returned to parliament after Mahmud Mashhadani was reinstated as speaker, but has withdrawn its cabinet ministers from Maliki's cabinet. Sadr's parliamentary bloc also returned recently to the legislature following a protest of the most recent bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, but also withdrew from the cabinet in April. This week Sadr announced a suspension of militia activies by his Mahdi Army following clashes in Karbala which left over 50 dead. Maliki recently announced a new coalition involving al-Hakim and Talabani, but noticeably lacking Sunnis. Not pictured is former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose smaller Sunni bloc is boycotting cabinet meetings and has announced it will withdraw from government.

Iraqi Shi'ite, Sunni officials meet in Finland

Iraqi Shi'ite and Sunni Arab officials met in Finland on Saturday to discuss ways to end the sectarian violence crippling the country, a spokeswoman for the group organising the gathering said. "The seminar has started well," Crisis Management Initiative director of operations Meeri-Maria Jaarva told Reuters.

Jaarva said Sunni and Shi'ite representatives were attending, but declined to name them.

An official from the powerful Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) said one of its senior officials, Akram al-Hakim, was at the meeting. Hakim is a minister of state for national dialogue in the Iraqi cabinet.

The official, speaking in Baghdad, said Sunni Arab politician Saleh al-Mutlaq and a senior official from the Shi'ite Dawa party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki were also there.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

Iraqi community leaders hold talks in Finland

Sunni and Shiite leaders from Iraq met in Finland on Friday where they will study past peace processes to see if lessons can be learned to end Iraq's inter-communal violence, Finnish officials said.

The Iraqi delegation consists of "some members of parliament, academics and one government minister," Meeri-Maria Jaarva, the director of operations of Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), a Finnish non-governmental organisation specialising in conflict resolution, told AFP...

In total, some 30 people were taking part in the seminar, which was to last "a couple of days".

CMI has repeatedly insisted that the Iraqis would not be holding "negotiations"...

CMI was created by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari in 2000. In 2005, the group mediated a peace accord between the Indonesian government and rebels in the province of Aceh.

Read the rest at Yahoo News

Finland Hosts Iraq Peace Seminar

The Crisis Management Initiative, a conflict-prevention group headed by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, said it was hosting the seminar to examine how lessons learned from peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland could be applied to Iraq.

Seminar organizers would not say who was attending, except to confirm that both "Sunni and Shiite groups" had arrived. The venue and other details will be kept secret until the talks are over, organizers added.

Finnish broadcaster YLE said representatives of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the leader of the largest Sunni Arab political group, Adnan al-Dulaimi, were at the gathering. Humam Hammoudi, the Shiite chairman of the Iraqi Parliament's foreign affairs committee, also was in Finland, YLE said.

Officials from South Africa and Northern Ireland also are participating in the seminar, CMI spokeswoman Meeri-Maria Jaarva said. The meeting was expected to last two days.

Read the rest at CBS News

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