Iraqis divided on upcoming security conference

Iraqis are divided on the upcoming Iraq conference aiming to drum up support and find solutions for the unrelenting violence in the country, slated to start on Saturday in their capital Baghdad.

Representatives from Iraq's Arab neighbors as well as Iran, Turkey, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Arab League are heading for Baghdad for the regional security meeting on Saturday.

While some hailed the session as a success, some said Iraq should not expect much from it.

Labid Abbawi, a Kurdish deputy minister in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, understands the meeting as a preparatory meeting for the ministerial one due to convene in April in Cairo.

"The goal of this meeting is to seek security, political and economic support from the neighboring countries along with discussing the issues of Iraqi refugees and cut of Iraqi debts," he said.

Sami al-Askari from the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite bloc, said the conference represented a wide-world acknowledgment to the Iraqi government, the country's political process and the role of Iraq in the area.

Aiyad al-Samarraie, a senior official from the Iraqi Consensus Front, a leading Sunni parliamentary bloc called on the participating countries to support the political process and the Iraqi government to help imposing law and security along with rebuilding the war-torn country.

"Those countries which meddle Iraq's internal affairs should know that failure in Iraq would surely have a negative impact on the region and the world as well," he added.

But Mahmoud Uthman, an independent member in the Kurdish parliamentary bloc, believed that "Iraqis should have their own solutions for their problems before they ask for help from other countries."

"We should share a common view among conflicting parties and then we ask others to help us to find a way out of our plight," Uthman said.

"Therefore I urge the Iraqi political and religious leaders to find a way out of the dangerous crisis that will plunge the country into civil war."

Nevertheless, Uthman consider the conference may "bear fruit if the participating parties come up with good wills and exclusively focus on Iraq's problems."

However, some critics have anticipated the conference might become a platform for some participants, namely, the United States and its adversaries, Iran and Syria to deal with their own problems.

Fatih Abdulsalam, a correspondent of Iraqi newspaper Azzaman, was pessimistic about the meeting.

He said that "the conference is not bringing Iraqis together. It is a gathering of the powers who are taking good advantage of the status quo."

"Iraq is not in need of countries delivering speeches in closed door meetings in its capital at a time the government has closed its ears and eyes to the real needs of the Iraqi people." he asserted.

Source: Xinhua