Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was to present a national reconciliation plan to parliament today aimed at defusing the Sunni insurgency and tackling sectarian violence, political sources said.
The peace plan, which could be Al Maliki's boldest political move yet, sets out to remove powerful militias from the streets, open a dialogue with rebels and review the status of purged members of the Baath party.
Political sources said a key element of the 28-point blueprint would be to draw rebel groups into the process of implementing hoped-for agreements on such questions as defining 'terrorism'.
One important question will be how far Al Maliki, who took office on May 20, would be willing to go to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table.
Compensation
Hasan Al Senaid, a lawmaker in his Alliance, said Al Maliki would offer dialogue with groups that had not shed Iraqi blood.
But Al Maliki still refuses to engage Saddam loyalists or Al Qaida, the groups behind much of the violence.
The former exile has long been a strong defender of the sacking of Baath members from the army, a US-engineered policy that critics say bolstered the insurgency.
Former Baathists are expected to get financial compensation under the reconciliation scheme, Al Senaid said.
The programme also aims to tackle militias, which are seen as among the most destabilising forces in Iraq but are difficult to disband because they are tied to political parties. "Militias will be disarmed and integrated into civil service jobs or the armed forces," said Al Senaid.
Sami Al Askari, another member of Al Maliki's bloc, cast doubt on whether the plan would be ready for parliament today.
But he stressed that it would mark a serious effort to ease sectarian violence that exploded after the Feb. 22 bombing of a shrine in the town of Samarra.
"The main task of this plan will be to try to undo sectarian tensions after the events of Samarra," he said.
A suicide car bomb exploded in Dhuluyia, 90km north of Baghdad, killing five members of an Iraqi security patrol, a policeman at the scene said.
