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Iraq: Sadr hopes Iran’s new president will end sectarianism

June 22, 2021 at 12:04 pm

Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr Najaf, on February 10, 2021 [ALI NAJAFI/AFP via Getty Images]

Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric and leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr, said he hopes the new Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, would resort to reason to end sectarianism and not encourage “extremism and escalation of conflicts” in the region.

“We hope that he will use reason, Sharia and dialogue to end political and sectarian conflicts in the region which would strength Islam, Shiism and Arabism, and weaken the common enemy in general and Israel in particular, which have exploited those conflicts for a long time to spread their webs,” Al-Sadr said in a statement posted on Twitter yesterday.

Al-Sadr called on Saudi Arabia and Iran to solve their problems on the one hand and keep Iraq out of their conflict as well as not interfere in its affairs, especially as Iraq is on the verge of parliamentary elections, which are an internal affair.

He stressed on the continuation of good neighbourliness and the development of “equal” relations between his country, Saudi Arabia and Iran, stressing that the main foundations of good neighbourliness are “non-interference in the country’s internal affairs and cooperation in overcoming common difficulties”.

READ: Iraq’s Al-Sadr calls for restoring ‘Shia House’