By Mousa Afshar
NCRI – On May 3-4 a conference on stabilizing Iraq will take place in Sharm El-Sheikh. On Thursday May 3 the meeting is titled the ‘Initiative for International Treaty on Iraq’, in which Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, and 80 other member countries will take apart.
The Initiative will encompass ideas to meet the Iraqi needs for the next decade. The initiative will partly address the Iraqi debts. Saudi Arabia alone has agreed to forgive 80% of its owed 15 billion Dollars in the frame work of this initiative.
Total Iraqi debt has been calculated at about 140 billion Dollars. So far 52 countries, among them the Debtor Club in Paris who will forgive 80 to 100 Billion Dollars, have shown readiness to attend the conference.
This treaty also includes a five year plan focusing on economical, social, and political improvements which is the result of a full year of negotiations.
According to Washington Post, Some of the neighboring Sunni countries are not willing to help support Iraq’s majority Shiite government since it has failed to attract the support of the minority Sunni population after four years.
This will be the main subject of discussion in Sharm El-Sheikh on May 4. To this end both Nuri Al-Maliki as well as Iraq’s foreign minister have been traveling to neighboring countries to gather support.
On May 4, the Iraq’s Security Conference will include countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, The permanent members of United Nations, Arab League, member countries of Islamic Conference Organization, as well as Canada, Japan, and the European Union countries.
Commenting on the purpose of the conference, the Secretary General of the Arab League said, “The aim of this conference is to establish cooperation and mutual understanding of all Iraqi main stream leadership in ending the critical and worrisome current situation, as well as stopping the religious segregation.”
With Understanding that Iranian regime is the main culprit of terror, chaos, and violence in Iraq, their appearance or lack of appearance in the conference has generated a lot of discussions.
The mullahs at first announced that they won’t appear at the conference. Abbas Araghchi the principle official of the mullahs’ foreign ministry, who represented them in the Baghdad Conference said, “As long as the captured Iranian diplomats have not been released, Iran will not appear in any conference about Iraq with Americans present”.
Although Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister requested the presence of Iranians at the Egypt Conference, he received a negative response. This was Iran’s standpoint until April 29 when Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hard-line president, announced that Iran has agreed to attend..
Was the several days of denial and then on Sunday, the sudden announcement that they will attend, to attain any type of concessions or was it due to disagreements within Iran’s leadership?
The answer will involve understanding of the dilemma Iranian mullahs’ are in acknowledging the fact that Iran will lose whether or not it attends the conference.
Nouri Al Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has rather deep and extensive relationship with the Iranian leadership, after his visit to Kuwait, with regards to the Iranian absence said, “If necessary, I will personally travel to Iran and will convince the Iranian officials to attend the conference”.
It is quite clear that by its absence, Iran, while being the chief culprit in the Iraqi crisis, will risk more isolation.
However, for Iran taking part in the meeting would also be troubling as they most likely will be questioned as the main perpetrator.
On the other hand, the conference is taking place at a time when the Congress in the United States is putting pressure on President Bush to pullout American troops from Iraq. This will result in mounting even more pressure on Iraqi prime minister’s government to come up with some kind of reform and progress.
In the next several weeks the Iraqi National Assembly is expected to pass a bill to make the oil industry operational, easing the prohibitions against the Baath party, and reforming the constitution to protect the interests of Sunni Arabs in Iraq.
Any improvements to the Iraqi political process with support from Arab countries will more than ever put pressure on Iran and undermine its policy of intervention in Iraq.