BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on security authorities to exercise maximum self restraint in facing terrorists who are trying to provoke armed clashes between security elements and protesters, underling that there are foreign agendas trying to push the country to sectarian strife.
Al-Maliki said in an official statement released from his office : The political process faces significant challenges which require all political blocs to pay a lot of attention and to be very careful of the foreign agendas which are trying to push the country to sectarian strife and disintegration.
The higher national interest and the preservation of civil peace require us to cooperate in order to thwart the plans of those who want to harm Iraq's national unity, and without our national unity, our sovereignty and our independence would be in a serious danger.
Thus, we would like to emphasize a set of guidelines and general principles, including the following:
One: The armed forces, the police and the security forces should exercise the utmost restraint and avoid giving the terrorists the chance to drag them into an armed confrontation or to harm the peaceful demonstrators.
Two: Prevent terrorist organizations and armed groups from infiltrating the demonstrations and deform its peaceful nature and change the legitimate demands of the citizens, and continue combating terrorist organizations outside the demonstrations.
Three: we reiterate our praise and appreciation of the positions taken by religious scholars, led by His Eminence Sheikh Abdul-Malik al-Saadi, as his wise and moderate calls had a considerable effect in pulling the rug from under the feet of extremists who plot to harm Iraq and Iraqis.
Four: We praise the positions of the honorable Iraqi tribes that confronted the attempts to harm the Iraqi state, its symbols and institutions.
They expressed their solidarity with the sons of the Iraqi people holding political and security positions of leadership, and we hope that our honorable Iraqi tribes will maintain the positions of protecting national security and stability.
Five: we call on all citizens wishing to participate in the demonstrations which is a right granted by the Constitution to exercise their right considering compliance with the law, which imposes getting the prior appropriate permits to organize demonstrations from the concerned authorities, and committing to the approved course and time of the demonstrations, the Demonstrators should submit their applications to the local governments.
Six: The demands should be classified according to the responsible and concerned authority, some of the demands relate to local governments and central government and ministries and other demands relate to the Council of Representatives and the Judiciary.
Representative delegations from the demonstrators should submit those demands to the concerned authorities.
Seven: we call on the citizens to exercise the right to demonstrate in each city and not to follow the extremist calls to transform the demonstrations into civil disobedience and take the demonstrations out of the constitutional context in order to serve foreign agenda.
Eight: Beware of the demands that reflect the orientations aiming at undermining the political process such as the cancelling of laws that are outside the framework of the Legislative Authority, such as bringing back the Baath Party and releasing terrorists convicted of murdering innocent people and of violence and kidnapping as that would be injustice and a violation to the rights of the people and the state.
Nine: We call on all demonstrators to excise restraint and act responsibly to protect national unity and prevent sectarian and terrorist groups from infiltrating their crowds and raise banners that provoke the feelings of the other components of the Iraqi people and drive the wedge of sectarian strife which if returned, God forbid, it will burn us all and only the warlords would benefit from it, and those are the leaders of terrorism and militias.
We urge all the demonstrators to behave in a civilized manner appropriate to the great cultural and humanitarian legacy of the Iraqi people throughout history, then it will not be difficult to solve all the problems on the basis of shared responsibility and not through evading responsibility by some partners in the government and in the parliament.
Dear Honorable Iraqi people..
We are on the threshold of provincial elections, which is the first elections that we will conduct and Iraq is free from the presence of foreign troops.
This necessitate that all Iraqi people should give considerable attention and care to the behavior and attempts by some parties that are trying to exploit events in the electoral race at the expense of the interests of the homeland and the citizen and they cast the responsibility on others without any religious or national considerations.
We should all consider the historical responsibility in this juncture and to lead the country to safety and work together to complete the process of building the state institutions on the proper grounds and do not allow the destruction of the political process that will entail disastrous consequences on Iraq and its people God forbid that.
SH (TF)/SR