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ARBIL, Iraq, Oct
23 (AFP) - 10h07 - Arab League chief Amr Mussa
called for a new Iraq as he addressed the Kurdish
parliament Sunday during a landmark visit aimed at
drumming up support for a national reconciliation
conference.
"I hope Iraq will change, that we will see another
Iraq where Iraqis from all walks of life live
together in peace and love," he told MPs at the
parliament, who greeted his speech with applause and
a standing ovation.
The head of the 22-member Arab League had arrived
the day earlier to meet with regional president
Massoud Barzani in a highly symbolic visit that
marked Arab League recognition of the Kurdish
autonomous region.
Mussa, on his first trip to Iraq since the fall of
Saddam Hussein in 2003, said Saturday he had won
crucial backing from Shiite spiritual leader Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for his planned attempt to
reconcile Iraq's divided communities.
"We have always understood the Kurdish people's
ambitions," Mussa told a press conference in Arbil.
Mussa met last week with the preeminent Sunni
religious body, the Committee of Muslim Scholars,
and several members of the government in Baghdad.
Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr rejected Mussa's
overtures, however, continuing to insist the League
clearly condemn insurgent attacks before he would
talk with the pan-Arab body, which wants to hold a
preparatory conference in Cairo on November 15 ahead
of full talks in Iraq.
In London, the Sunday Telegraph published a poll
that showed up to 65 percent of Iraqi citizens
support attacks and fewer than one percent think
allied military involvement is helping to improve
security in their country.
The nationwide survey, undertaken for the Ministry
of Defence, underscored for the first time the true
strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more
than two and a half years of bloody occupation, the
newspaper said.
The US military announced that four soldiers had
died Friday in various attacks, bringing the overall
toll since the US-led invasion of March 2003 to
1,991 according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon
figures.
Coalition forces killed 20 people suspected of links
to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and
his Al-Qaeda movement during raids on suspected safe
houses near the Syrian border, the US military said.
Ten Iraqis, including seven members of Iraqi
security forces, were killed in various insurgent
attacks in the country, security sources said.
An Iraqi civilian was killed and eleven others
wounded in a suicide car bomb attack aimed at an US
army patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, police
sources said.
In Baghdad, Iraqi electoral officials released
partial results of last week's vote on a draft
constitution, while counting continued for the last
five provinces.
Voters in only one province have rejected the draft
charter by a potentially blocking two-thirds
majority, according to the figures, but two
provinces with large Sunni Arab populations, among
whom opposition to the text runs high, are among
those that have yet to return their results.
Under rules for the October 15 referendum, the
constitution fails if it is rejected by a two-thirds
majority in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces, though
that still appeared unlikely.
The commission said the remaining five provinces
would release their results in the next few days.
Saddam and seven former cohorts all pleaded not
guilty Wednesday to charges of crimes against
humanity for the killing of 148 Shiite villagers in
mass reprisals following a botched 1982
assassination attempt.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a veteran opponent
of the death penalty, said he would not stand in the
way of its use against Saddam, even though he would
not sign the warrant himself.
"I will not sign, neither his sentence nor that of
anybody else," Talabani told the Italian daily Il
Corriere della Sera, adding that they could still be
signed by his two vice presidents.
AFP
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