(Robert Fisk:) Iraqi insurgents offer peace in return for US concessions [View All]

[sabra]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2251354.ece

Robert Fisk: Iraqi insurgents offer peace in return for US concessions
For the first time, Sunni insurgents disclose their conditions for ceasefire in Iraq

For the first time, one of Iraq's principal insurgent groups has set out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American and British forces to leave the country they invaded almost four years ago.

...

Shia militias are nowhere mentioned. The demands include the cancellation of the entire Iraqi constitution - almost certainly because the document, in effect, awards oil-bearing areas of Iraq to Shia and Kurds, but not to the minority Sunni community. Yet the Sunnis remain Washington's principal enemies in the Iraqi war.

<snip>

Then come the conditions:

* The release of 5,000 detainees held in Iraqi prisons as "proof of goodwill".

* Recognition "of the legitimacy of the resistance and the legitimacy of its role in representing the will of the Iraqi people".

* An internationally guaranteed timetable for all agreements.

* The negotiations to take place in public.

* The resistance "must be represented by a committee comprising the representatives of all the jihadist brigades".

* The US to be represented by its ambassador in Iraq and the most senior commander.