Yawar blasts foreign meddling, sectarianism in Iraq

"DUBAI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Iraqi Vice-President Ghazi al-Yawar said on Tuesday that sectarianism and foreign intervention were hampering Iraq's efforts to form a national unity government.

Shi'ites and Kurds, once marginalised under former President Saddam Hussein, swept to power in January elections. Sunni political leaders, and many of Iraq's Arab neighbours, fear the government is now too closely allied to Shi'ite, non-Arab Iran.

"The problem is in the leaders and foreign intervention, whether it is international or regional," Yawar said, urging political parties to abandon sectarian or ethnic interests.

Yawar, a Sunni Muslim and former interim Iraqi president, was speaking ahead of Dec. 15 polls to select the first full four-year parliament since the Saddam's ouster in 2003.

"We need national political entities to enhance the feeling of allegiance to Iraq and not to sectarian (forces)," he told an Arab media forum in Dubai."
Reuters