BAGHDAD – Iraq’s Shia prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, yesterday called on Kurdish authorities to hand over Sunni vice-president Tareq al-Hashemi to face charges that his office ran death squads, a demand likely to further heighten sectarian tensions.
The latest dispute between Iraq’s Shia-led government and Sunni rivals erupted in the hours that the last US troops were withdrawing from Iraq. Mr Maliki sought Mr Hashemi’s arrest, prompting the Sunni leader to travel to semi-autonomous Kurdistan.
“We ask our brothers in the Kurdistan region to take responsibility and hand the wanted person over to the judiciary. His running to another state would create problems,” Mr Maliki told a press conference. “We will be sure to provide a fair trial for Tareq al-Hashemi,” he said.
Mr Hashemi has denied the charges, which he says were fabricated by Mr Maliki’s government, and said he is willing to face judges in the northern Kurdish enclave, which has its own regional government and armed forces.
The crisis risks unravelling a fragile year-old power-sharing deal among Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocs that have struggled to overcome tensions since sectarian slaughter in the years after Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003.
Shia leaders say the case involves law enforcement against individuals and does not target a community, but the Sunni minority fears that Mr Maliki is increasing his hold on the government and marginalising Sunnis.
In a system devised under US occupation to divide power, Iraq has a Shia prime minister with Sunni and Kurd deputies, a Kurdish president with Shia and Sunni vice-presidents, and a Sunni parliament speaker with Shia and Kurd deputies.
Mr Maliki has also asked parliament to fire the Sunni deputy prime minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq. Mr Hashemi and Mr Mutlaq are the country’s most senior Sunni politicians.
The White House on Tuesday said it was “obviously concerned” about the arrest warrant issued for Mr Hashemi and urged the inquiry should be conducted according to rule of law.
The last US troops withdrew from Iraq on Sunday nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam.
Mr Maliki’s moves now risk spiralling into a wider struggle in Iraq, where sectarian sentiment always runs close to the surface.
Shia leaders say the measures are against specific individuals and not Sunnis in general, but the timing of the moves is dangerously stoking Sunni fears of a Shia push for more control.
“Gambits like this are always risky; in the past, the United States often used its leverage to get him to back down, and the US military presence helped reassure nervous Sunnis,” said Stephen Biddle at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Now, of course, there is no such military presence and US leverage is much smaller. That makes the stakes and the risks greater.”
Vice-president Joe Biden called Mr Maliki and the Sunni speaker of parliament on Tuesday.
He “stressed the urgent need for the prime minister and the leaders of the other major blocs to meet and work through their differences together”, the White House said. – (Reuters)