BAGHDAD: Powerful Iraqi Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr on Wednesday called on the country’s judiciary to dissolve parliament by end of next week, threatening unspecific consequences if it does not do what he says.
The populist leader has helped inflame tensions in Iraq over the last two weeks by commanding thousands of followers to storm and occupy parliament, preventing the formation of a government nearly 10 months after elections.
His political opponents, mostly fellow Shiites backed by Iran, have refused to accede to Sadr’s demands, raising fears of fresh unrest and violence in a conflict-weary Iraq.
The judiciary “must dissolve parliament by the end of next week... if not, the revolutionaries will take another stance,” Sadr said in a statement on his Twitter account, without elaborating.
Sadr has called for early elections and unspecified changes to the constitution after withdrawing his lawmakers from parliament in June.
The withdrawal was a protest against his failure to form a government despite holding nearly a quarter of parliament and having enough allies to make up more than half the chamber.
Sadr blames Iran-aligned parties for the failed government formation and accuses them of corruption, but his followers also control some of the worst-managed government departments.
Experts are divided on whether Al-Sadr has any legal basis for his demands. He won the largest share of seats in the election last October, but failed to form a majority government that excluded his Iran-aligned rivals.
Al-Sadr called his followers “revolutionaries” and said “they will take another position” if his demands were not met, hinting at possibly escalating the protest.
The judiciary stated previously it does not have the constitutional right to dissolve parliament and that only lawmakers can vote to dissolve the legislature. Because the parliament has exceeded the constitutional timeline for forming a government following the October elections, what happens next is not clear.
Al-Sadr’s political rivals in the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-backed parties, said earlier that the parliament would have to convene to dissolve itself.
Last week, thousands of Al-Sadr’s followers stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraq’s parliament, government buildings and foreign embassies. They overran and occupied the parliament, after which all sessions of the assembly were canceled until further notice. The takeover also effectively halted efforts by the Coordination Framework to try and form the next government after Al-Sadr failed to do so.
Iraq’s political impasse, now in its tenth month, is the longest in the country since the 2003 US-led invasion reset the political order.
In their takeover of parliament, Al-Sadr’s followers stopped short of overrunning the Judicial Council building next door — an act that many consider a coup as the judiciary is the highest legal authority in the country.
(With Reuters and AP)
Iraq’s Sadr tells judiciary to dissolve parliament in a week
https://arab.news/zjmjd
Iraq’s Sadr tells judiciary to dissolve parliament in a week
- Muqtada Al-Sadr said on Twitter that the judiciary has one week to dissolve the legislature
US military visits contested area in northern Syria to defuse rising tensions
- US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm
DEIR HAFER, Syria: A US military delegation arrived in a contested area of northern Syria on Friday following rising tensions between the Syrian government and a Kurdish-led force that controls much of the northeast.
The US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm. A spokesperson for the US military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier in the day, scores of people carrying their belongings arrived in government-held areas in northern Syria ahead of a possible offensive by Syrian troops on territory held by Kurdish-led fighters east of the city of Aleppo.
Many of the civilians who fled were seen using side roads to reach government-held areas because the main highway was blocked by a checkpoint in the town of Deir Hafer normally controlled by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The Syrian army said late Wednesday that civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and then extended the evacuation period another day. The announcement appeared to signal plans for an offensive against the SDF in the area.
There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides.
Men, women and children arrived in cars and pickup trucks that were packed with bags of clothes, mattresses and other belongings. They were met by local officials who directed them to shelters.
In other areas, people crossed canals on small boats and crossed a heavily damaged pedestrian bridge to reach the side held by government forces.
The SDF closed the main highway but more than 11,000 people were still able to reach government-held areas on other roads, Syrian state TV reported.
A US military convoy arrived in Deir Hafer in the early afternoon accompanied by SDF officials. Associated Press journalists saw SDF leaders and American officials enter one of the government buildings, where they met inside for more than an hour before departing the area.
Inside Deir Hafer, many shops were closed and people stayed home.
“When I saw people leaving I came here,” said Umm Talal, who arrived in the government-held area with her husband and children. She added that the road appeared safe and her husband plans to return to their home.
Abu Mohammed said he came from the town of Maskana after hearing the government had opened a safe corridor, “only to be surprised when we arrived at Deir Hafer and found it closed.”
SDF fighters were preventing people from crossing through Syria’s main east-west highway and forcing them to take a side road, he said.
Kortay Khalil, an SDF official at the Deir Hafer the checkpoint, said they had closed it because the government closed other crossings.
“This crossing was periodically closed even before these events, but people are leaving through other routes, and we are not preventing them,” he said. “If we wanted to prevent them, no one would be able to leave the area.”
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo, previously Syria’s largest city and commercial center, that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods north of the city that were then taken over by government forces.
The fighting broke out as negotiations stalled between Damascus and the SDF over an agreement reached in March to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
The US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, posted on X on Friday that Washington remains in close contact with all parties in Syria, “working around the clock to lower the temperature, prevent escalation, and return to integration talks between the Syrian government and the SDF.”
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with Kurdish separatist insurgents in Turkiye.
