Iraq's most senior leaders are to hold a crisis summit this week to find a way to heal the sectarian split in their beleaguered national unity government and head off more violence, they said on Sunday.
At what one senior Western diplomat said was a "moment of truth" for Iraq's elected leaders, the Shia premier refused to accept the resignation of six Sunni members of his cabinet and promised to discuss their concerns. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday met President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, and Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi, a fellow Shia.
Tellingly, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, the senior Sunni Arab in the government and a critic of Maliki's alleged sectarian bias, was not present, but his colleagues vowed to hold inclusive talks in the coming days. "The prime minister's position is that he has refused to accept the resignations. This is a good thing and the door is open to discuss this topic," Abdel Mehdi announced after the meeting. On Wednesday, Iraq's main Sunni political bloc the National Concord Front said it was withdrawing its five ministers and deputy prime minister from the coalition, dealing a blow to the government's claims to represent all Iraqis.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the bloc said the Front had no intention of going back on its resignations but nonetheless held the door open to future dialogue. Since the US-led invasion of March 2003, Iraq has plunged into an abyss of overlapping civil conflicts that have divided its rival religious and ethnic communities, and left tens of thousands of civilians dead.
Last year's formation of an elected government of national unity held out the promise of reconciliation, but Maliki's rule has been undermined by bitter sectarian rivalries both within and outside his fragile coalition. Shia parties suspect Sunni leaders of nostalgia for the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein, when their minority sect dominated political power, and accuse them of supporting violent insurgent groups.
Sunni leaders accuse the triumphant Shia parties of ties with Iraq's powerful neighbour Iran and condemn their alleged complicity with Shia militias that have been accused of attacking Sunni civilians. The bad blood between the parties has poisoned political debate and all but paralysed the work of government, culminating in this week's withdrawal by the main Sunni bloc, a possible death knell for the coalition.
Maliki's US backers are watching developments with concern, aware that the breakdown could stymie efforts to reconcile the warring factions and undermine the work of 155,000 American troops to end the conflict.
"The current situation on the parties, and the withdrawal of Tawafuq (Concord Front) from government is obviously a huge challenge, and something we can't simply dismiss as just politics," a senior Western diplomat said on Saturday. "It is a big challenge to the government and I think in some ways it's a moment of truth for how they might handle this particular problem," he said. US officials hope the "leadership council" - Maliki plus the tripartite presidency and Massud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region - will be able to strike a power-sharing deal and reassure all parties.
Following Sunday's talks, Talabani said the men would meet this week. Maliki's office confirmed that he had refused to endorse the resignations, leaving open the door for a compromise deal after further high-level talks. "We agreed on making efforts in order to get the Concord Front back and to tackle what we are able to tackle, but not everything that they have demanded," Maliki said, flanked by Talabani and Abdel Mehdi.
"At the moment, we have no intention of changing our position on the resignations," hit back Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the Concord Front, in comments to AFP. "It is not necessary for us to be a part of the government. The door to dialogue is open, even if we are outside the government," he added. This holds out the hope of compromise, but the Western diplomat warned that the crisis could yet get worse. "Tawafuq may yet come back in, I wouldn't rule that out," he said. "But it's also possible that the Tawafuq withdrawal may accelerate, and we may see the Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi resign from the presidency council. "So these next few days, the next few weeks are going to be critical."