Setback in Baghdad's efforts to maintain national dialogue

The efforts exerted by the Iraqi authorities to establish a "national dialogue" with national, Marxist and Islamic forces received a hard setback.

Well-informed Iraqi sources said that the figures with which Baghdad held dialogues revealed their "doubts about the credibility of the calls advocated by the government."

The same sources indicated that the Iraqi government started talks about a law for "parties" and a "press law" that can meet the need to express the views of opposition forces, while figures and forces with whom the Iraqi government made the dialogue found in that a " recession from strong signals and promises previously taken by the Iraqi government to reconsider the two laws and enact two new ones."

The sources asserted that Baghdad refused in its dialogue with the national figures discussions on the authority of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the legality of the authority given to members of the ruling family, adding that the calls made for the President to review "imposed laws" and halt "execution campaigns whose orders are taken by local military or party leaders."

The same sources quoted Iraqi officials as saying that "a dialogue with the Kurds" is still continuous and that it is "an important and decisive dialogue" toward the "threats" posed by the situation in Kurdistan to the stability of the Iraqi president's government.