Political rifts in war-torn Iraq are nowhere near bridged although Iraq's largest Sunni political bloc, the Iraq Accordance Front (IAF), returned to parliament on Monday, ending their two-day boycott.
Ahmed Suleiman, a lawmaker from the IAF, said early in the day that the lawmakers of his bloc were returning to the parliament and the bloc's leader Adnan al-Dulaimi was scheduled to deliver a speech to explain what happened during the past few days.
The confrontation is a telling reminder of the nations deeply-entrenched discord between the Shiites and Sunnis.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte urged Sunday that political reconciliation must ensue to consolidate the security improvement in Iraq.
The IAF, which has 44 out of the 275 seats in the parliament, withdrew from the government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in August, citing their political demands had failed to be met, including sharing more power and easing restriction for the former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to take official posts.
The bloc later rejected Maliki's effort seeking its return.
Iraqi security forces have arrested dozens of Dulaimi's bodyguards and aides for suspected linkage of a car bombing attempt detected on Nov. 29.
The security asked Dulaimi to stay at home since intelligence showed that his safety was under threat. However, Dulaimi claimed that he was virtually under a house arrest.
The IAF announced Saturday its lawmakers would not attend the parliament sessions until Dulaimi had regained freedom.
The boycott was moved Sunday after Dulaimi was allowed to move out.
The political tension is not eased with the end of the boycott, but showed signs of running high as the distrust and hostility between the Sunni and Shiite camps are very likely to go deeper.
"We do expect such actions and we expect more provocative actions to the leaders of the Accordance Front or to other members of the parliament in the future which harm the path of the political process and the national reconciliation as well," Suleiman told Xinhua, adding that the Shiite-led government should be responsible "for any result and delay in the political process due to the issue."
Meanwhile, some Shiite lawmakers also take a gloomy view of the reconciliation process in the sectarian divided country.
"It is widely known that the political process suffers real crises and the al-Dulaimi's crisis has added a new one to load it more," Basim Sharif, a Shiite lawmaker from the Islamic Fadhila party, told Xinhua.
Calling for a thorough solution for the crises, the Shiite lawmaker said the withdrawal of the IAF practically paralyzed the parliament totally.
"It should be solved in a quite way in order not to spark more problems," said Sharif.
The incident coincided with the U.S. is painstakingly spurring the Iraqis to undo their antagonism amid the dramatic pickup of security situation.
"The security surge has delivered significant results. Now progress on political reconciliation, including key national legislation as well as economic advances, is needed to consolidate the gains," Negroponte told reporters in Baghdad.
A surge of sectarian violence since early 2006 have wreaked a great havoc in Iraq, prompting the U.S. to reinforce its forces here to stabilize and create a niche for its desired reconciliation efforts by Iraqi parties. Improving as the security is, little, if any, political achievement has responded.
Negroponte warned that if progress can not be achieved, "we risk falling back toward the more violent habits of the past."
Source: Xinhua
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