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Iraqiya Bloc’s Death Threat Claims Do Not Deserve Response- Al-Maliki Source | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat- A senior member of Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition, Khaled al-Asadi rejected the claims made by Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc spokesman Haider al-Mulla that an official in the Prime Minister’s office insulted him and threatened to kill him during a telephone call, describing these claims as “not deserving a response.”

Khaled al-Asadi confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that al-Mulla “wants to become an important figure in the Iraqiya bloc and improve his personal profile via these statements, therefore if this truly took place he must produce the recording of this telephone call.” He also described al-Mulla’s statement as being “irresponsible” and called on him to “produce what he has to the Iraqi judiciary and the media so that they can appraise it.”

Al-Mulla also said that “there are some people in the Iraqiya bloc who do not want them to be present in the political process, and they want to complicate their relations with others…therefore these figures have begun to target the [Iraqiya] bloc in order to strike at the political process.”

For his part, al-Mulla reaffirmed that he had recorded this telephone conversation and that he will present this recording to the Iraqi judiciary. He also claimed that the Dawa party was in contact with the Iraqiya bloc and was attempting to “calm the situation” and that “they have asked for more time in order to rectify the situation and issue an apology.” Al-Mulla said that “if an apology is not issued for the profane language and the death threat, I will go to the judiciary and present the entire audio recording.” He also confirmed “I am set to return to Iraq in the coming few days, and the threats will not stop me from returning to Iraq and carrying out my duties.”

Al-Mulla had previously said that “we hoped that during his time in office al-Maliki would put in place foreign policy that would return Iraq to its leading role in the region or give it the tools to establish the political process.” He also said “Al-Maliki must realize that he would not have moved from the Sayida Zainab neighborhood of Damascus to the head of the Baghdad government were it not for the international will that toppled the previous [Iraqi] regime.” It seems that these remarks angered those close to al-Maliki.

In addition to this, State of Law senior member Hassan al-Sineed said that he intended to raise a lawsuit against Hadiar al-Mulla for wrongly attributing statements to him. In a statement to the press, al-Sineed said that “what al-Mulla attributed to me with regards to statements about the Sadrists and the National Iraqi Alliance has no basis in fact.” He also called on al-Mulla to not practice “political hypocrisy” and “attempt to sow discord between the State of Law coalition and the National Iraqi Alliance.”

Al-Mulla had said that he had received a telephone call from al-Sineed in which al-Sineed asked him about the reason for the intensity behind the Iraqiya bloc’s statements and comments against internationalizing the issue of the Iraqi elections. Al-Sineed reportedly said that al-Maliki was referring to the Sadrist trend and the National Iraqi Alliance, rather than the Iraqiya bloc.