DUBAI: Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council issued warrants on Sunday for the arrest of people who attended a conference that called for the normalization of ties with Israel in autonomous Kurdistan.

The council mentioned in a statement carried by the Iraq News Agency (INA) that the names of three individuals whom it issues arrest warrants against for calling normalizing ties with Israel. 

They are Wissam Al-Hardan, Mithal Al-Alusi, and a ministry employee Sahar Al-Taie. 

“Legal action will be taken against the rest of the participants once their full names are known,” the council statement added.

The conference drew a chorus of condemnation Saturday from the federal government in Baghdad who rejected the conference's call for normalisation and dismissed the gathering as an “illegal meeting.”

The conference “was not representative of the population’s (opinion) and that of residents in Iraqi cities, in whose name these individuals purported to speak,” the statement said.

The office of Iraqi President Barham Saleh, himself a Kurd, joined in the condemnation.
Powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr urged the government to “arrest all the participants,” while Ahmed Assadi, an MP with the ex-paramilitary group Hashed al-Shaabi, branded them “traitors in the eyes of the law.”

The culture ministry, in a statement, said its employee, Tai, who attended the Arbil forum did not represent the ministry, but she had taken part as “a member of a (civil society) organisation.”

(with input from AFP)