Iraqi insurgents set condition to lay down arms

Kurdish MP says at least seven armed groups demand US troop pullout from Iraq to lay down arms.

By Mona Salem

06/27/06"Middle East Online" -- -- BAGHDAD -- Armed groups fighting US-led forces in Iraq have demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops as a condition for laying down their arms, a Kurdish lawmaker said Tuesday.

At least seven armed groups have been holding indirect dialogue with President Jalal Talabani, and the government Sunday unveiled a reconciliation plan aimed at bringing rebels into the political process in a bid to end the daily cycle of violence in Iraq.

"According to sources close to the presidency, dialogues between the intermediaries of these groups and President Jalal Talabani are continuing," said lawmaker Mahmud Othman.

"The armed groups have put a condition that there must be a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces and also their resistance to foreign forces must be legitimately recognised."

The United States confirmed Monday that it was considering a plan to sharply reduce its 130,000 strong force in Iraq by the end of 2007, but said it was just one option among many and was not "engraved in stone."

A Shiite lawmaker with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa party told The New York Times that Sunni-led insurgents have approached the government with offers to start negotiations on the basis of the reconciliation plan.

"The Sunni mediators told me there's a kind of positive approach by these armed groups in response to this initiative," Hassan al-Suneid said.

"I think the initiative will open up a new atmosphere for these dialogues and upgrade them."

But leading MP Jalaluddin al-Saghir from Iraq's dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance said expressed ignorance about any results from the dialogue.

"These talks have led to nothing and the government was informed of no results of these initiatives," Saghir said, suggesting that the government was not a party to these negotiations.

Saghir, often a target of Sunni insurgents, refused to accept the presence of armed groups in the political process.

"We consider that the so-called resistance does not exist and if it had existed it would have shown us its face and its leaders would have declared and revealed their programme by now," he said.

"We do not have to negotiate with people who do not have a program and nobody in the government has the right to speak with the assassins of the Iraqi people."

He said a number of tribal chiefs and leaders of the restive western Sunni Al-Anbar province had expressed a desire to join the political process, but some faced opposition from Sunni extremists.

"There were fights yesterday between extremists and those citizens who favour reconciliation in Amiriyat al-Fallujah," near the former insurgent bastion town of Fallujah, he said.

He however expressed optimism that the reconciliation plan would succeed in the long run, saying: Maliki's plan is "not a magic wand, it needs time and patience to succeed."

The leader of Sunni Islamic Party, Iyad al-Samarrai, expressed readiness to act as intermediary between the government and the armed groups.

"We are ready to facilitate the dialogues even if they are held directly," he said," adding more and more people from "the west of Iraq and particularly in the province of Al-Anbar were in favour of reconciliation."

But the plan was being hindered due to the precarious security situation in the province which was once the stronghold of Al-Qaeda.

After Maliki presented his plan to parliament Sunday, many Sunni leaders welcomed the proposals, but urged the government to crackdown on militias associated with various Shiite political parties.

They blame the militias for large-scale killing of Sunni Arabs in the ongoing sectarian conflict.

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