RESPECTED FINNISH NGO HOSTS SECOND IRAQ

C O N F I D E N T I A L HELSINKI 000197 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/06/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ FI SUBJECT: RESPECTED FINNISH NGO HOSTS SECOND IRAQ RECONCILIATION SEMINAR Classified By: PolChief Greg Thome for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d) ¶1. (SBU) The Crisis Management Initiative (CMI),a respected Finnish NGO headed by former President (and UN Special Envoy for Kosovo) Martti Ahtisaari, hosted a second reconciliation seminar in Finland for senior Iraqi political leaders April 24-27. The first occurred in Sept. 2007. Aimed at establishing a dialogue that will advance political and social compromise among various factions in Iraq, the seminar included 36 leading Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish officials from nearly all major political parties, as well as from the &Awakening Councils.8 Facilitators from Northern Ireland and South Africa also participated, as they did in September. Co-sponsored by Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts, the CMI seminar was again held secretly at an undisclosed location in Helsinki, per the participants, request, and very little information has been made available to the press. The GoF did not participate directly in the discussions, but did put up more than half the funding for the conference. MFA officials observed some of the sessions, and they offered the Embassy the following read-out. &THE KEY PARTICIPANT8 MISSING -------------- ¶2. (C) MFA officials and conference organizers were generally pleased with the substance and the overall participation. Of the 36 leaders prsent, nearly all were members of parliament and/o cabinet-level officials, or senior figures withinthe &Awakening Councils.8 Ten members of the Costitutional Revision Committee attended, includig Chairman Sheikh Hammoudi, as well as several members of the Iraqi Parlament,s Foreign Affais Committee (FAC). Other seior figures included Minister for Dialogue and Reconciliation Akram Al-Hakim; Kurdistan Patriotic Union Leader Fouad Massoom; Dawa Party Leader Ali Adeeb; and Iraqi Islamic Party leader Osama al-Tikriti. Kurdish leaders, who did not participate in September, were also well represented, as were the &Awakening Councils,8 which sent leaders from Baghdad, Andar and Diyala provinces. ¶3. (C) Organizers were disappointed, however, that no representative of the Sadrist block attended. According to one MFA observer, the seminar focused most heavily on seeking ways to reduce the ongoing violence in Baghdad. It became clear that, for a variety of reasons, bridging the internal divides that exist within the Baghdad Shiite and Sunni communities -- rather than between Shiites and Sunnis -- has become crucial. Therefore, the intra-group dialogue, particularly among the Shiites, suffered without anyone who could represent Sadr,s factions. RESULTS AND NEXT STEPS -------------- ¶4. (C) Organizers and MFA contacts confirmed that all in attendance appeared to have the authority to speak on behalf of their parties or groups, and that the spirit of the dialogue was indeed positive. Many participants have been engaging in &a lot of hard work8 over the past two years to identify creative avenues for reconciliation, one observer noted, and their shared commitment to that goal -- as well as their levels of respect for one another -- was evident. The participants agreed that the two Helsinki sessions have allowed them to make progress, but many underscored that now was the time to begin achieving more concrete results on the ground in Iraq. With this in mind, they proposed to host the next seminar in July or August in Baghdad; Finnish, Northern Irish and South African participation will continue, along with the possible addition of United Nations representatives. A preliminary declaration of conference outcomes was also apparently drafted, but will not likely be released as consensus was not reached on the final wording before the participants departed Finland. On a separate track, members of the Iraqi Parliament,s FAC proposed establishing a contact group or other form of dialogue with their Finnish counterparts, and the MFA will seek to facilitate this initiative. HYATT