Feuding Iraqis meet for secret peace seminar in Finland

[struggle4progress]

Source: Associated Press

31 Aug 2007, 2310 hrs IST

HELSINKI: Representatives from feuding Sunni and Shiite groups were meeting behind closed doors on Friday to discuss ways of ending the bloodshed in Iraq, officials said.

Crisis Management Initiative, a conflict-prevention group headed by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, said it was hosting a seminar to examine how lessons learned from peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland could be applied to Iraq ...

CMI said it was covening the closed-door meetings in conjunction with the John W McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies of the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The Finnish Foreign Ministry said it was not involved in organizing the meetings ...

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Europe/Feuding_Iraqis_meet_for_secret_peace_seminar_in_Finland/articleshow/2327985.cms

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Representatives of Iraq's Shiite, Sunni hold talks in Finland
www.chinaview.cn 2007-09-01 00:32:34

... The CMI said that the Iraqis would not be holding "negotiations," it is an Iraq- seminar. The seminar is aimed at studying the South African and Northern Ireland peace processes to see if there are lessons that can be learned and applied in Iraq.

The representatives from the peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland will attend the seminar.

The seminar is a closed-door event. Meeri-Maria Jaarva, the director of operations of the CMI said that for security reasons, the names of the Iraqis and their political positions will not be disclosed. She would not disclose the names of participants, nor the location of the closed-door seminar hosted by the CMI.

In total, some 30 people were taking part in the seminar, which was to last a couple of days.

Editor: Yan Liang

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/01/content_6641835.htm

[donsu]

1. excellent!

nt

[LeftishBrit]

2. Encouraging - hope some good comes of it.

[otherlander]

3. Well, now it's not secret anymore; is it?

Way to go, AP. :eyes:

Kidding. Seriously, though, this is good news. Don't the Quakers do something like this, too? Where world leaders meet "off the books" so that they can negotiate even if their countries are officially not talking to each other? I guess that's necessary because if anyone knew that they were actually talking like reasonable people instead of just screaming tough-guy threats, their dicks would fall off or something.