Iraq's Maliki summons parties, Sunnis rebuff (Reuters)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki summoned all Iraq's parties to talks in the coming days but was promptly rebuffed on Wednesday by the main Sunni bloc, as a sectarian crisis in his power-sharing coalition deepened.

Days after the final withdrawal of the U.S. forces which overthrew Saddam Hussein, Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim allies have sought to arrest the country's Sunni vice president on charges of terrorism and on Wednesday Maliki demanded that leaders of the autonomous Kurdish region hand over the wanted man.

At a news conference later, Maliki said his cabinet had agreed on Tuesday to invite all the political blocs, including those which failed to win seats in last year's parliamentary election, to a meeting in the next few days with all government ministers, the president and the two vice presidents.

That would bring leaders together from the Shi'ite majority and from the Sunni and Kurdish minorities which have a share of these posts - the kind of dialogue which U.S. officials have been urging Maliki to pursue in order to calm passions provoked by the arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.

But Hashemi's Iraqiya bloc quickly issued a statement to reject Maliki's call for talks and said it was considering a no-confidence vote in parliament against the premier for breaking his oath of office and violating the constitution.

"Iraqiya refuses the invitation to dialogue by Maliki since he represents the main reason for the crisis and the problem, and he is not a positive element for a solution," said the party, which joined Maliki's coalition last year after months of negotiation. It recently began a boycott, complaining that the views of its mainly Sunni constituency were being ignored.

(Reporting by Suadad al-Salhy; Writing by Serena Chaudhry; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/wl_nm/us_iraq

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