Hujjat al-Islam Ammar al-Hakim:

Meetings held in foreign countries don’t benefit Iraq

Rasa – The chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq said that Iraq doesn’t need the mandate of a foreign country.

News ID: 428080

Date: 12 March 2017 - 10:07

RNA – In a meeting with a number of members of the media at his office in Baghdad, Hujjat al-Islam Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim, the chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, said that Iraq is the best arena for organizing the members of different groups of people without the interference of any foreign state and Iraq doesn’t need the mandate of these countries.

In this regard, the Iraqi cleric added whenever a foreign country wants to hold a meeting on Iraq, it’s natural that this meeting will be to their benefit and interest and such foreign-sponsored meetings won’t take Iraq’s interests into consideration.

Hujjat al-Islam al-Hakim said the best way to restore confidence between the political forces and the public is for the political forces to introduce new faces to the people and for those on the national lists to engage in competition with each other and for the national forces who are loyal to the country to obtain an overwhelming majority in the next parliament.

He noted that Iraqi affairs are linked to the Iraqi people and they are the most aware of this issue and said, “In regard to the issue of national reconciliation, our red line is the constitution and this cannot be exceeded. We believe that the reform of the constitution must also be based on legal mechanisms and documents comparable to the constitution because nothing can take the place of the law.”

The head of the Iraqi National Alliance said, “We don’t accept the mandate of a foreign state in Iraq and there is no way to return to the past and the disparagement of the sacrifices of the Iraqi people.”

Hujjat al-Islam al-Hakim added, “National reconciliation isn’t an interim project but is a project which has stages and a visionary plan to build the country which must take into consideration all the challenges which prevail in Iraq.”

The statements by the chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq came as Turkey has recently hosted a two-day meeting focused on Iraq to which a number of Iraqi Sunni personalities were also invited to discuss the “unity, security and stability of Iraq.”

This meeting, in addition being condemned by Hujjat al-Islam al-Hakim, was also condemned by Shaykh Mahdi al-Sumayda’i, the Grand Mufti of Iraq, who said, “None of these Sunni individuals are allowed to participate in meetings outside Iraq and we will deal with the participants of such meetings in the same way that we deal with Daesh and they do not have the right to return to Iraq.”

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