Iraq's president accused neighboring Arab states on Tuesday of sowing discord in the country by backing Iraqi politicians he labeled seditious - including a leading Iraqi Sunni Arab leader.
"Regrettably some Arab countries are aiding sedition," Jalal Talabani's office quoted him as saying in a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Iraq's president accused neighboring Arab states on Tuesday of sowing discord in the country by backing Iraqi politicians he labeled seditious - including a leading Iraqi Sunni Arab leader.
However, it said the president, a Kurd, singled out hard-line Sunni cleric Harith al-Dhari for special criticism, saying al-Dhari has "nothing to do other than incite sectarian and ethnic sedition." Al-Dhari regularly travels between Iraq and the Persian Gulf states, as well as Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
Al-Dhari, the head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, is a fervent critic of al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government. In a television interview last week, he mocked a government offer to end three years of insurgency and bloody sectarian violence by negotiating with anti-government insurgents, excluding Sunni extremists, members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party, and those who fought U.S. troops in the country.
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