Representatives of Main Parties to Discuss Iraq's Future in Baghdad

On Monday representatives of the main Iraqi parties will discuss in Baghdad the future political system in the country. The meeting is organised by the interim administration of Iraq headed by retired U.S. General Jay Garner. Representatives of the Iraqi National Congress party of Ahmed Chalabi, the National Accord Party of Ayad Alawi and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq of Muhammed Bakir al-Haqim, and of the two principal Kurdish parties - the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (the leader - Massood Barzani) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (the leader - Jalal Talabani) have been invited to participate in the meeting.

There are no differences of views in the country on what Iraq should be - it should be united, free and democratic. This slogan, which is now the most popular in Iraq, is written on walls of houses. As for the people, who have to translate this slogan into reality, the situation is more complex here.

"At first it is necessary to establish order in the country", one of the leaders of the Iraqi National Accord movement Ahmed Raui believes. And then, at the Baghdad conference of the leading Iraqi political parties the people, who will govern Iraq, will be determined, he said in a conversation with a RIA Novosti correspondent.

Despite the fact that, as many Iraqis claim, most of them have allergy to the parties and their leaders who "returned to Iraq on the American tanks," precisely they are most likely to form the future government of the country.

Leader of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi is the chief candidate for the role of the head of the future government. However, in the Iraqis' opinion, he is an American candidate. "Chalabi does not have any base in Iraq", a representative of the religious school of al-Najaf city which is sacred to the Shi'ites of the whole world, Sheikh Abdeljaber al-Khouzami, claims. "He arrived in the country accompanied by 700 fighters of the Liberation Army of Iraq who were armed and trained by the CIA." Representatives of Iraq's oldest political party, the communist party, were not invited to the present meeting, though it most of all suffered from the persecution by the former regime. Secretary of the international relations committee of the Iraqi communist party Shaker al-Dijaili noted that "the Iraqi communists, who were shot dead, and those, who were forced to leave Iraq, number tens of thousands". The communists come out for earliest withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq. "Democracy cannot be built with the help of tanks and occupation", al-Dijaili says. "Iraq itself must decide its destiny".