Feuding Iraqi factions end closed-door peace talks in Finland
The Associated Press
HELSINKI, Finland: Representatives from rival Iraqi factions ended a three-day meeting in Finland on Sunday and invited their advisers from Northern Ireland and South Africa to a new round of talks in Baghdad, organizers said.
After "intense discussion" at a secret location near Helsinki, the 36 participants including senior Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians agreed that dialogue and negotiation should be the main way of resolving political disputes, organizers said in a statement.
It was the second round of closed-door talks between feuding Iraqi factions organized by the Crisis Management Initiative, a mediation group headed by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who in 2005 helped end 30 years of fighting between Aceh rebels and the Indonesian government.
"I am satisfied with the progress we have achieved in the difficult circumstances of our ongoing conflict and trust that we can achieve more in the coming months," said Humam Hammoudi, the chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee of the Iraqi National Assembly.
The representatives agreed to hold talks in Baghdad within three months "with the aim of advancing national reconciliation in Iraq."
"All political parties and factions would have to abide by the principles they had adopted in order to participate in negotiations," said a statement, issued by the CMI group.
It said the participants included Minister of National Dialogue Akram al-Hakim; Fouad Massoum, a senior Kurdish lawmaker; Shiite lawmaker Ali Adeeb and Osama Al-Tikriti from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political party.
Six advisers from Northern Ireland, with long experience of sectarian conflict, and five from the apartheid-era struggle in South Africa also took part.
They included Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, who helped find a solution to the violence in Northern Ireland in 1998, and Cyril Ramaphosa, who assisted in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa in 1993.
The CMI-hosted meetings were convened by John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, University Massachusetts Boston and the Institute for Global Leadership, Tufts University.
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