Fiery cleric invited to talks

SHI’ITE Muslim firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr has been invited to the July political conference to select a national council that will advise Iraq’s interim government, an Iraqi official said yesterday.

“An invitation has been sent to Moqtada Sadr,” said Fuad Maasum, the chair of the committee preparing the conference.

“Moqtada Sadr has begun to transform his militia into a political organisation, which is considered a positive step and his movement has roots in the country,” Maasum said.

He added that a thousand people would be invited to the conference, which aims to have representatives of political movements, tribes and regions from across Iraq to select the country’s 100-member interim national council.

The council will serve until January elections and have the power to approve the nation’s 2005 budget, call ministers in for questioning over policy and pick a new president or deputy president if one dies in office.

The US-led coalition has previously called for Sadr to stand trial before an Iraqi court for the murder of a pro-US cleric in April 2003 in the holy city of Najaf.

The fundamentalist preacher led a two-and-a-half month revolt against US forces in central and southern Iraq.

US officials have retreated from initial demands in April that Sadr “be killed or captured” and now refer to his trial as an internal Iraqi matter.

The young cleric signalled more than a week ago his willingness to accept the new government and his aides said Sadr’s followers were now organising a political party.