Maliki finally offers 'olive branch' to Iraq rebels
"Reconciliation and national dialogue does not mean honouring and reaching out to the killers and criminals, no and a thousand nos -- there is no reconciliation with those until they are punished for their crimes."
Maliki said the initiative, first floated on June 6, would be open only to those rebels who have realised the "futility" of opposing the political process that has produced a new constitution and an elected government.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "We know that there is a segment that has followed the devil's road and were embraced by the forces of darkness and the 'mukhabarat' will continue to commit crimes," Maliki said, referring to the feared intelligence services of the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
"To those who want to build and reconcile, we extend our hand with an olive branch to build our nation. To those who insist on aggression, terror and killing, we will confront them with firmness to protect our people."
The 24-point plan aims to quell the raging Shiite-Sunni sectarian violence and also rein in the Sunni-backed insurgency that has killed thousands of people across the country.
On Saturday Kurdish Lawmaker Mahmud Othman had revealed details of the plan, saying it would "offer amnesty to everyone except war criminals and those who have killed innocent Iraqis".
"The plan aims to open dialogue with all insurgent groups except Al-Qaeda and Saddamists, and to disarm militias," Othman told AFP.
He said the plan calls for a "timetable for the build-up of armed forces to control the security situation so that the role of coalition forces will come to an end".
A report in the New York Times Sunday said that the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, foresees a major reduction in American forces there by the end of 2007, and the first cuts in September.
Othman said the reconciliation plan will offer compensation to the families of civilians killed by "coalition troops and those who have been wrongly detained", and will also focus on improving Iraqis' standard of living.
Maliki has already approved the release this month of about 2,500 prisoners held in US and Iraqi prisons, most of them Sunnis.
President Jalal Talabani, who announced his backing for Maliki's plan on Wednesday, had said an amnesty for those who had borne arms against the government will be offered, provided they rejoin the political mainstream.
"National reconciliation will be open to everyone and this will be explicitly stated by the prime minister when he presents it," Talabani said.
Since taking office in April 2005, Talabani, a Kurd, has repeatedly called for an amnesty to be offered to Sunni insurgents.
But his calls have previously gone unheeded because of opposition from the US military and Shiite hardliners who dominate parliament.
Although some Sunnis have joined the political process, many have yet to reconcile themselves to losing power to the Shiite majority and continue to support the insurgency.
The head of the Arab League mission to Baghdad, Mokhtar Lamani, said last week that the biggest obstacle to reconciliation was a "severe lack of confidence" among the feuding factions.
Many Sunnis believe they are the target of militias linked to Shiite ruling parties, while Shiites have a deep-seated suspicion towards any potential reconciliation partner after a wave of attacks that has hit the community hard since the destruction of a revered shrine in Samarra in February.
Ahead of Maliki's announcement, rebels killed at least eight people across the country.
Meanwhile Japan began withdrawing its military vehicles from Iraq Sunday as part of its overall pull-out of forces.
A convoy of more than a dozen Japanese military trucks and engineering equipment left the southern base of Samawa for Kuwait.
Last week Maliki announced that Japan will withdraw its 600 troops from Iraq next month by transferring the security of the southern Muthanna province to the fledgling Iraqi forces.
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