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Iraqi Kurdish president in protest-hit Baghdad for talks
BAGHDAD, Nov 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The president of Iraqi Kurdistan
travelled to Baghdad on Wednesday for talks with senior officials just hours
ahead of a special parliament session to discuss weeks of deadly anti-
government demonstrations.
The head of the United Nations’ mission in Iraq (UNAMI) was expected to
attend the legislative meeting in the afternoon as diplomatic pressure on
Baghdad intensifies.
Protests demanding a new leadership have rocked Iraq’s capital and Shiite-
majority south for weeks, the demonstrators undeterred by government pledges
of reform or the deaths of more than 300 people.
On Wednesday morning, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region
(KRI) Nechirvan Barzani met with Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi in Baghdad.
The two leaders are believed to have good personal ties, and the KRI
capital Arbil has backed the current government.
Barzani was also scheduled to meet President Barham Saleh and Speaker
Mohammed Halbussi, who will chair an afternoon parliament session attended by
UNAMI chief Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
She will address the main political blocs and brief lawmakers on her
recent meeting with the country’s top Shiite religious authority Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
Sistani has backed a UN roadmap out of the crisis, which includes
electoral reforms and anti-graft measures within two weeks, followed by
constitutional amendments and legislation on infrastructure within three
months.
The 89-year-old cleric said protesters “cannot go home without sufficient
reforms” but also voiced fears that authorities were “not serious” about
enacting them.
Bolstered by his comments, anti-regime demonstrators have returned to the
streets after a crackdown by security forces had temporarily reduced the
turnout at rallies.
Activists clashed with riot police in Baghdad on Wednesday near the main
protest camp of Tahrir (Liberation) Square, AFP’s correspondent said.
In the port city of Basra, some 800 students and teachers returned to camp
outside the provincial headquarters after they had been cleared out over the
weekend by riot police.
BSS/AFP/RY/1605 hrs