Iraq Speaker of Parliament Urges Reconciliation

(Prague, Czech Republic—October 5, 2007) Speaker of the Iraqi parliament Mahmoud al-Mashhadani today urged reconciliation of the warring groups in Iraq, saying that “failure to achieve this means we will have a worse scenario than the present situation.”

He made the comment during a visit to the broadcast operations center of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to give an interview to RFE/RL’s Arabic-language Radio Free Iraq.

Al-Mashhadani said “when we replace the bullet with the word, we will have achieved real victory,” adding that “we have to be open-minded, accommodating of the other view and to act in good faith.”

Al-Mashhadani was in Prague with five other Iraqi parliamentarians on a three-day visit to expand ties with the Czech parliament.

Radio Free Iraq broadcasts 17 hours a day (five hours of core original programming with updates throughout the day), produced in Prague and the service’s Baghdad Bureau and transmitted to listeners via nationwide AM and satellite signals and FM broadcasts on IBB transmitters located in Baghdad, Arbil, Basra, Kirkuk, Mosul, Nasiriyah, Samawa, and Sulaymaniyah. Iraq Service programming is also available via the Internet, at the service’s website www.iraqhurr.org and at www.rferl.org; English-language news about events in Iraq can be found on the RFE/RL website.