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by Lydia Georgi
Saudi King Abdullah, whose
country is a close US ally, on Wednesday slammed the “illegitimate
foreign occupation” of Iraq in an opening speech to the annual
Arab summit in Riyadh.
“In beloved Iraq, blood is
being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign
occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war,” Abdullah
said.
He also said that Arab nations,
which are planning to revive a five-year-old Middle East peace plan
at the summit, would not allow any foreign force to decide the
future of the region.
In the past, Saudi leaders
including Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal have often
criticized US policy in Iraq but have never described its presence
there as “illegitimate.”
If Arab leaders recover trust in
each other and regain their credibility, “the winds of hope will
blow on the nation, and then, we will not allow forces from outside
the region to determine the future of the region, and only the flag
of Arabism will be raised on Arab soil,” Abdullah said.
Arab foreign ministers meeting
ahead of the summit agreed on Monday to call for an amendment of
Iraq’s 2005 constitution to give Sunni Arabs a greater share of
power in the war-ravaged country and prevent its breakup.
But Iraqi Foreign Minister
Hoshyar Zebari responded by saying the government did not need a
“diktat” from the Arabs on how to amend its constitution and
boost national reconciliation.
The Iraqi government has
initiated moves to review a de-Baathification law in a bid to woo
former members of the regime of executed dictator Saddam Hussein
back into politics and government jobs.
Under a controversial de-Baathification
law, tens of thousands of members of Iraq’s former ruling Baath
party were stripped of their posts in government, at universities
and in business after the 2003 US-led invasion.
The law has been a major source
of grievance for the minority Sunnis, who have waged a deadly
insurgency against US troops and the Shiite-led American-backed
government in Baghdad.
Iraq’s once-ruling Sunnis also
want an amendment of the constitution, which they fear leaves their
central regions without natural resources and Iraq’s oil wealth in
the hands of the governing Shiites and the autonomous Kurds.
--AFP
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