BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Tribal leaders and clerics from Iraq’s Sunni heartland said on Friday they would be willing under certain conditions to join a new government that hopes to contain sectarian bloodshed and an offensive by Islamic State militants that threatens Baghdad.
Members of the Sunni Muslim minority made their offer after Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, threw his weight behind prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi, a Shia Muslim trying to form an inclusive government in a country beset by daily bombings, abductions and executions.
Abadi faces the daunting task of pacifying the vast western province of Anbar, where Sunni frustrations pushed some to join an insurgency led by the Islamic State fighters.
The tribal leaders and clerics said Sunni representatives in Anbar and other provinces have drawn up a list of demands to be delivered to Abadi, their spokesman Taha Mohammed al-Hamdoon told Reuters.
Separately, one of Anbar’s most powerful tribal leaders, with thousands of men at his command, said on television he was ready to work with Abadi.
Ali Hatem Suleiman, a leading figure in an earlier alliance with U.S. and Iraqi forces against al Qaeda, said he could consider joining a new campaign against the Islamic State rebels.
Sistani, spiritual leader of the Shia majority, said earlier that the handover to Abadi offered a rare opportunity to resolve political and security crises.
Maliki finally stepped down as prime minister under heavy pressure from allies at home and abroad late on Thursday, clearing the way for Abadi who is a party colleague but has a reputation as a less confrontational figure.
Sistani told the country’s feuding politicians to live up to their “historic responsibility” by cooperating with Abadi as he tries to form a new government and overcome divisions among the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities that deepened under Maliki. Abadi himself, in comments online, urged his countrymen to unite and cautioned that the road ahead would be tough.
Sistani, a reclusive octogenarian whose authority few Iraqi politicians would dare openly challenge, also had pointed comments for the military, which offered serious no resistance when the extremist rebels staged lightning offensive in June.
“We stress the necessity that the Iraqi flag is the banner they hoist over their troops and units, and avoid using any pictures or other symbols, Sistani said, in a call for the armed forces to set aside sectarian differences. Maliki was blamed for blurring lines between the army and Shia militias.
Maliki endorsed Abadi, a member of his Islamic Dawa party, in a televised late-night speech during which he stood next to his successor, surrounded by other leaders.
The appointment of Abadi, had drawn widespread support within Iraq but also from the United States and regional power Iran – two countries which have been at odds for decades.
“The regional and international welcome is a rare positive opportunity … to solve all (Iraq’s) problems, especially political and security ones, Sistani said in comments which were relayed by his spokesman after weekly Friday prayers in the Shia holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad.
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