A leading Iraqi Shiite cleric on Friday demanded that the US sack its envoy and accused him of siding with fellow Sunni Muslims in the divided country's growing sectarian conflict.
The call by Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi came as political leaders, urged on by the US ambassador, held their latest round of negotiations to form a government of national unity after elections in December and head off sectarian civil war.
Yacoubi said in a sermon read out at mosques for Friday prayers that Washington had underestimated the conflict between Shiites and the once dominant Sunni Arab minority.
"They are either misled by reports which lack objectivity and credibility submitted to the US by their sectarian ambassador to Iraq ... or they are denying this fact," Yacoubi said in the message, later issued as a statement.
"It [the US] should not yield to terrorist blackmail and should not be deluded or misled by spiteful sectarians. It should replace its ambassador to Iraq if it wants to protect itself from further failures," the statement said.
After the imam of Baghdad's Rahman mosque read that line, worshippers chanted "Allahu Akbar" -- God is great.
Yacoubi's call for Zalmay Khalilzad's ouster is the latest sign of growing divisions between the ruling Shiites and Washington and comes days after an Iraqi-US raid on a mosque compound killed at least 16 Shiites and outraged many Iraqis.
Yacoubi is the spiritual guide for the Fadhila party, one of the smaller but still influential components of the dominant Islamist Alliance bloc. He is not part of the senior clerical council around Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf.
Nonetheless, Shiite politicians said his comments reflected widespread disenchantment among them with Khalilzad.
"It's a very good statement," one senior official in the Alliance, not from Fadhila, said of Yacoubi's sermon.
Khalilzad has been criticized by Shiite leaders who say they resent his championing of efforts to tempt Sunnis away from armed revolt into a coalition government.
The US embassy declined to comment on the criticisms.
Meanwhile, calls emerged yesterday within the Shiite alliance for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step aside as the bloc's nominee for another term while pressure mounted from Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians for the Shiites to pick another candidate.
One prominent Shiite politician, former national security adviser Qassim Dawoud, openly called for al-Jaafari to withdraw his name from the list.
Shiite officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said others within the Shiite alliance were open to replacing al-Jaafari. But they denied media reports that the Shiite alliance had already asked al-Jaafari to step aside.
"There is a current [within the Shiite alliance] that is calling on the prime minister to withdraw his nomination because the political process has reached a deadlock," Dawoud said. "I personally asked that he withdraw his nomination."
Opposition to al-Jaafari, a former physician who spent years in exile in Iran and Britain, has bogged down talks among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians over formation of a new government.
Sunni and Kurdish politicians have urged the Shiites to replace al-Jaafari, claiming his government had been ineffective in curbing tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Al-Jaafari won the nomination by one vote in a caucus of Shiite lawmakers last month.
Al-Jaafari edged out Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi because of support from radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The prospect of a prime minister politically beholden to the vehemently anti-US al-Sadr has alarmed both Iraqi and US officials.
Under the constitution, the nominee of the biggest bloc in parliament gets first crack at the prime ministership, subject to parliamentary approval. The Shiites control 130 seats in the 275-member parliament.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS