BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- An Arab League initiative to hold peace and reconciliation talks in Iraq is facing obstacles due to internal differences over participants and agenda.
The mission of the deputy Arab League secretary Ahmed bin Heli, who is in Iraq to iron out differences, faces the hurdle of the government's insistence to define who should participate and who should be left out.
Kurds and Shiites who dominate the government and parliament are wary of the possibility of inviting groups who they believe committed crimes punishable by law and who they say have been fuelling and financing the bloody insurgency.
The Shiite parliamentary bloc, which controls 275 seats, is opposed to including former Baathists in the reconciliation parley.
Adnan al-Dalimi, a senior member of the Sunni Congress of the People of Iraq, expressed reservation at the government's position.
In addition to differences over participation, the various Iraqi factions disagree over the agenda over which the government wants to have a say.
Sources close to the Shiite coalition in parliament say the bloc insists on holding the conference in Iraq and not abroad, in order not to give the impression the government is incapable of ensuring the security of the talks and participants.
Jawad Maliki, a senior member of the Shiite Islamic Daawa Party, expressed his group's rejection of the participation of former members of the dissolved Baath party as well as the groups that have been opposing the political process in Iraq, such as the Committee of Muslim Ulemas, Iraq's highest Sunni religious authority.
Maliki expressed strong fears the Arab League might invite members of the former Baath party, describing that possibility as "completely unacceptable."
Moreover, opposition groups, including mainly Sunni parties, refuse to participate in the conference unless it discusses a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq, the release of prisoners and the reinstatement of the former Iraqi army which was dissolved after the U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.
