IRAQ: Ahmadinejad visit stirs passions
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Iraqis are nervously awaiting Sunday’s visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
According to the National Iraqi News Agency, hundreds of people in the provincial capital of Baqubah protested in the streets and held up placards saying: ‘Iraq is not for sale.’
One Sunni Arab lawmaker, Mohammed Dayni, called for peaceful protests throughout the country.
At Friday prayers in Baghdad, Sunni cleric Sheikh Abdul Karim Samarrai, speaking at Shawaf Mosque, expressed grudging admiration for the controversial leader for coming to Iraq despite the presence of U.S. forces. He scolded the leaders of Arab countries who haven’t yet made the trip, or even established full diplomatic ties with Iraq.
‘This is a message to the Arab leaders,’ said Samarrai, who is also a member of parliament. ‘Where are you? Where are your embassies?’
But most of his scorn was directed at Iraq’s neighbor to the east:
We wish this visit to be the way to create prominent relations with Iran to be based on the respecting each other and not interfering with the internal affairs. We wish to get a guarantee from [Ahmadinejad] not to interfere with our internal political affairs and Iraqi security. Everybody knows that Iran has already interfered and spread its roots all over Iraq. There are wanted individuals who killed, kidnapped and destroyed who found safe havens in Iran. I wish that the Iraqi government to rise to the level of demanding the handover of all those wanted people to the Iraqi judiciary and government.
— Borzou Daragahi and Saif Rasheed in Baghdad