Is this the National Meeting? Sovereignty & Reconciliation conference starts in Baghdad

[steveinfla]

Is this what we have been waiting for??? The National Meeting?? I didnt see this posted but if this was posted sorry for repeating....

Baghdad (AIN) –The conference of the Sovereignty and Reconciliation started in Baghdad on Friday.

The reporter of All Iraq News Agency AIN stated “The conference of the National Sovereignty and Reconciliation started in Baghdad on Friday in presence of the Premier, Nouri al-Maliki and a number of parliamentary and governmental figures.” /End/

http://alliraqnews.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25582:sovereigntya-reconciliation-conference-starts-in-baghdad-&catid=35:political&Itemid=2

[Alexyn1006]

Is this what we have been waiting for??? The National Meeting?? I didnt see this posted but if this was posted sorry for repeating....

Baghdad (AIN) –The conference of the Sovereignty and Reconciliation started in Baghdad on Friday.

The reporter of All Iraq News Agency AIN stated “The conference of the National Sovereignty and Reconciliation started in Baghdad on Friday in presence of the Premier, Nouri al-Maliki and a number of parliamentary and governmental figures.” /End/

http://alliraqnews.c...itical&Itemid=2

Hi Steve, there's some debate about this. Here's some articles from a while back re this subject:

Iraq reconciliation plan offers only limited amnesty

Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times

Published 4:00 am, Monday, June 26, 2006

2006-06-26 04:00:00 PDT Baghdad -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presented a muted national reconciliation plan Sunday that outlined a general direction for his new government, but offered neither a broad amnesty for insurgents nor any new options for members of Saddam Hussein's long-ruling Baath Party, the two most heavily disputed issues.

Also Sunday, an Islamic militant group that represents the country's most feared insurgent group, al Qaeda in Iraq, posted a video on the Internet apparently showing the beheading of one Russian Embassy worker and the shooting death of another. The militant group, the Mujahedeen Shura, or Council of Holy Warriors, claimed to have executed four Russians who were kidnapped June 3 in central Baghdad.

In violence across the country Sunday, at least 19 Iraqis were killed, Reuters reported, and one U.S. soldier was killed in a bomb blast Saturday north of Baghdad. The violence included the third large-scale kidnapping this month, with gunmen seizing 16 employees of a technology institute on a road north of Baghdad, police said.

Al-Maliki's plan, intended to reduce insurgent attacks through dialogue and amnesty, was weeks in the making, with all of Iraq's religious and ethnic political blocs participating. But al-Maliki opted for a version that did not stake out any new ground, but simply repackaged previous pronouncements. The decision appeared to have been influenced by religious Shiites who form his base and by the U.S. military command.

A government pardon -- which Sunni Arab leaders have called for in the case of Iraqi resistance fighters who oppose the U.S. occupation -- will apply, al-Maliki said in a speech to parliament, only to detainees who "were not involved in criminal or terrorist activities."

Only "irreconcilables" -- insurgents who fundamentally oppose the Iraqi state, by fighting for either a return of Baath Party dictatorship or al Qaeda's vision of a second Islamic caliphate -- would be categorically excluded, he said.

"The idea of the reconciliation and national dialogue should not be understood as rewarding the killers," al-Maliki said. "No reconciliation with those until they get their fair punishment ... for the criminal acts they committed."

Sunni Arabs welcomed the plan, but were quick to point out it offered little that was new.

"How can you call this amnesty?" said Sadoon al-Zubaidy, a Sunni Arab from the former parliament. "We're talking about releasing people who are either proven innocent or who have not been charged with anything. We have a twisted kind of logic here."

Indeed, one government official who spoke on condition of anonymity, because he did not want to be seen as critical, said: "Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the principles in that plan have been included in the Constitution and in the political program of the government."

Negotiating with what some Sunni Arabs call Iraqi resistance fighters, and including them in any amnesty, is critical to success in quelling the insurgency, Sunni Arabs say. But such fighters seek to force Americans out of Iraq by violent struggle, and offering them amnesty would run counter to U.S. policy in Iraq.

"We want outspoken acknowledgment for the national resistance, and it must be a direct statement," said Dhafir al-Ani, a member of the largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament. The Sunni Arab demand leaves al-Maliki in a delicate position, and he avoided taking it on directly. "For he who wants to build, we offer a hand with an olive branch," he said. "For he who insists on aggression, terror and killing, we offer him a hand that carries a strict legal position."

Al-Maliki made an effort to address another sore point for Sunni Arabs, what they say are overly tough criteria imposed against former Baath Party members who want to rejoin political life. He said the country's de-Baathification committee would include 90 to 95 percent of former Baathists in public life, which echoed previous conditions. http://www.sfgate.co...ted-2516569.php

U.N. preparing Iraq-Kuwait reconciliation plan

16 November 2009, 23:22 (GMT+04:00)

The United Nations is outlining a plan to help Iraq end its dispute with neighboring Kuwait over war reparations, 19 years after Baghdad invaded the oil-producing Gulf state, a U.N. official said on Monday, Reuters reported.

Baghdad wants the U.N. Security Council to reduce its reparation payments to Kuwait, which it ordered Iraq to pay after the 1991 Gulf war ended Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait.

Iraq says the reparations -- more than $20 billion -- are unfair and wants the amount reduced so it has more money for reconstruction and development. It has called for annulling Security Council decisions requiring the payments under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter.

U.N. special envoy to Iraq Ad Melkert told a meeting of the 15-nation council on Iraq that a top priority was the "normalization of (Iraq's) regional relations, not least with Kuwait, and the related exit from Chapter 7 provisions."

Melkert said the U.N. mission in Iraq would outline a plan for achieving this.

"We will seek consent of both parties to define a mutually agreed agenda, the completion of which should resolve any remaining issues and should normalize Iraq's position within the U.N.," he said.

Kuwait opposes ending Iraq's Chapter 7 status. But council diplomats say they might vote to lift the restrictions in the coming months, paving the way for Iraq to renegotiate the amount of reparations it pays to Kuwait.

OTHER ISSUES

Melkert told reporters that the proposal would cover an array of disputes between Kuwait and Iraq.

In addition to reparations, there is the issue of agreeing on the precise land and sea borders between Iraq and Kuwait, he said. Kuwait also demands information related to its missing citizens and the return of property the Kuwaiti government says was stolen during the occupation.

At the end of July Iraq owed some $25.5 billion in reparations, $24 billion to Kuwait alone.

Melkert did not comment on a visit to Iraq this month by U.N. assistant secretary-general Oscar Fernandez-Taranco in response to Baghdad's request for a U.N. inquiry into support given by foreign countries to insurgents.

Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Hamid al-Bayati, said his government considered Fernandez-Taranco's visit as a "first step to be followed by subsequent steps ... to uncover those behind the deadly bombings in Baghdad in August and October."

Twin suicide blasts against government buildings in Baghdad last month killed more than 150 people, and bombings in August devastated the Foreign and Finance ministries.

Iraq blames both attacks on al Qaeda and supporters of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party.

Baghdad has accused neighboring Syria of providing a safe haven for Baathists plotting attacks. The United States has previously accused Iran of interfering in Iraq and providing support to insurgents. Both governments deny the allegations.

(Hang on, trying to find the link to this one...it may be more of a Ch 7 related issue than an NM related "tell").

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/16/us-iraq-un-idUSTRE5AF4BK20091116

Edited December 30, 2012 by Alexyn1006