Islamic Cadres withdraws from the Iraqi National Congress

The Iraqi opposition Islamic Cadres Movement has announced its withdrawal from the Iraqi National Congress as an expression of its opposition to the condition the opposition grouping has reached, especially in regard to the formula of relations with the US and the imbalance in representing the Islamists.

The movement's political bureau issued a statement on Tuesday in London in which it announced its withdrawal from the leadership and executive committees of the Iraqi National Congress as of July 7. The statement attributed the withdrawal to the way the Iraqi National Congress deals with basic matters, the most important of which are the role it plays in the political change process, the position of the Islamic movements in the Iraqi National Congress commissions, the current relations of the Iraqi National Congress with the US.

The statement said that the "Islamic Cadres movement has actively taken part in the two constituent meetings of the national conference in Vienna and Salaheddine in 1992 and contributed to the activities of its various commissions after that date until the Windsor meeting."

The statement continued that the decision to form the collective leadership of the executive council was a "step in the right direction toward opening a new page in the history of Iraqi national political work, its mechanism and internal and external relations."

The statement continued as saying "developments that followed Windsor's meetings had resulted in several unacceptable negative phenomena that made it impossible for the conference to carry out its set national role on the one hand, besides it is difficult for the Islamic Cadres movement to continue taking part in the conference's commissions, especially the collective presidency of the council and the council's membership, on the other."