“ Iraqi Sunni and Shiite leaders meet to propose solutions to Iraq's sectarian violence ”

International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, June 12, 2007

The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS: As their country struggles with increasing sectarian violence, some Iraqi religious and political leaders met to reaffirm their commitment to building a tolerant, multiethnic nation, declaring that the ties that bind all Iraqis “will not be broken.”

Sunni and Shiite leaders gathered at U.N. headquarters for a two–day conference that ends Tuesday to discuss ways to ease the sectarian tensions that have resulted in much of the violence in Iraq. Iraq’s U.N. mission sponsored the event, entitled “Iraq for all Iraqis.”

“We have gathered here in New York, religious leaders and scholars, to discuss the vital issues of reconciliation and re–establishing the fraternal ties that have historically bound the people of Iraq together, which, however strained they may become, are not broken and will not be broken,” said Iraq’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Feisal al–Istrabadi.

Many of the leaders, who are theologians and imams in Iraq, have participated in a series of similar dialogues since May 2003, when they began working with Religions for Peace, an international religious coalition, to create an inter–religious council. They have met in Iraq, England, Jordan, South Korea, Japan and Norway over the past four years.

Mustapha Tlili, director of New York University’s Center for Dialogues, which co–sponsored the event, urged the leaders to reach a “new political consensus.”

“The old consensus was conceived in and enforced by violence,” he told the group.

The new consensus, he said, must be based on “shared values, shared objectives, shared interests, shared identities, and framed by mutual respect, a spirit of reconciliation and a strong commitment to peace — a strong commitment to an ’Iraq for all Iraqis.’”

“In Iraq, we have a great heritage of cooperation, of coexistence,” said Sheikh Khaild al–Mullah, head of the Sunni Islamic Scholars movement in the southern city of Basra.

Though Shiites and Kurds suffered injustices under Saddam, al–Mullah said most Iraqis were committed to a united, peaceful future.

“Despite all these deadly blows, the Iraqi structure was still united after the fall of the regime and the rebirth of a new Iraq,” he said.

At a luncheon on religious tolerance on Monday, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, also touched on the issue of combatting religious extremism, calling it the “central issue affecting the future of the world.”

Khalilzad, who served as ambassador to Iraq for two years before taking up the U.N. post in April, said he thought the violence there “is less about clashes between communities than about extremists in each camp seeking to foster sectarian conflict as a tactic to achieve their own dominance.”

“The failure of governments to deliver, either in terms of transparency or in terms of security, social and economic progress, lead to a kind of despair that fuels extremism,” he added.

The leaders at the conference at U.N. headquarters seemed to agree that extremism was born out of a social and economic breakdown.

While the violence that wracks the country served as background to their remarks, they rarely mentioned security and focused instead on the need to strengthen civil institutions and invest in education, the arts and health care.

They proposed plans for national reconciliation that called for regional autonomy within a united Iraq and spelled out the need for aid, especially to the least developed areas of the country.

William Vendley, secretary–general of Religions for Peace, told the leaders that religion has a unique role to play in bringing peace to Iraq, and urged them to not allow extremists to wield it as a tool of war. “But, and this is said with respect, they are not enough. Religion, too, must play its own unique, and I would argue, irreplaceable role.”

“Today we must all recognize that our religions — all of them — are being hijacked," Vendley said. "Cooperation among the religions is the way forward, to overcome the hijacking of religions. By coming together, by standing together, respecting our differences, we can be our true selves.”

For more information, contact:
Andrea Louie
Communications Manager Religions for Peace
777 United Nations Plaza,
9th Floor New York NY 10017
Alouie@wcrp.org
Phone: 212.687.2163, ext. 19

See this article online >

Press

Donate Now

How to make a tax-deductible donation to The Center for Dialogues

Donate

Site Map

Site by Bianchi