The head of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc said Iraq "stands on the brink of disaster" and issued a list of demands today in a political crisis triggered by charges against a Sunni leader.
Iraqiya leader Iyad Allawi, in an editorial for the New York Times, said Iraq was heading towards a "sectarian autocracy that carries with it the threat of devastating civil war."
Sectarian tensions are running high in Iraq ten days after the last US troops pulled out. Shi'ite prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has sought the arrest of Sunni vice president Tareq al-Hashemi, accused of running death squads.
The commentary, co-authored by Iraqiya officials Osama al-Nujaifi, the parliament speaker, and Rafie al-Esawi, the finance minister, said bloc leaders were being "hounded and threatened by Mr. Maliki, who is attempting to drive us out of Iraqi political life and create an authoritarian one-party state."
The political crisis, Iraq's worst in a year, threatens Mr Maliki's fragile year-old coalition government, an alliance of Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish political blocs.
Mr Nujaifi and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, yesterday proposed a national conference of political leaders to try to resolve the crisis and said allegations against Hashemi should be left to the courts.
But Mr Allawi, in a separate statement, listed a series of demands before he would agree to any conference, including the release of "all detainees held on false charges" and the formation of a panel of top politicians to oversee and prevent interference in legal procedures.
Iraqiya has criticised a recent arrest campaign against hundreds of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party over what some officials said was a plot to seize power after US troops left.
Mr Allawi also demanded the government implement an accord reached last year before the coalition government was formed that would have given him leadership of a new national policy council. Mr Allawi has accused Mr Maliki of reneging on the pact.
Mr Allawi said "all options are still open" to resolve the crisis, including early elections and the possibility of a new candidate for prime minister.
Both Iraqiya and the Sadrist movement of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have called for new elections, currently not due until 2014.
Reuters