Moqtada expresses support for the Istanbul meeting

Moqtada al-Sadr issued a statement Friday December 15 on the "Assistance for the People of Iraq" conference that was held in Istanbul the 13th and 14th (see this post). Sadr said he is in favor of the conference, "which supports our brothers [the Sunnis], and my whole concern is for the success of meetings like this, [of people] aiming to extricate themselves from the clutches of the occupation and the Baathists...I am ready to attend conferences in support of the Sunnis, those in support of the Shiites, or those in support of Iraq as a whole or indeed of any Islamic country".

Aswat al-Iraq reminds readers of the statements yesterday by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh expressing regret that Turkey would host such a conference, which he described anti-Iraq.

The reporter offers another excerpt from the Sadr statement: "If I were a scholar qualified to issue fatwas, I would without hesitation ban the killing of our brothers [the Sunnis] in Iraq or outside of Iraq... Whoever does that (Shiite killing Sunni or Sunni killing Shiite) is an enemy of God ...until the day of judgment."