Iraqi Leaders Voicing Anger at Arab Neighbors

KRG: Relations between Iraq and its Arab neighbors have worsened in recent weeks, highlighted by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's September 5 criticism of Arab leaders for failing to express sympathy or offer aid in the wake of the August 31 stampede that left nearly 1,000 Iraqi Shiites dead. "We stood with our Arab brothers in their hard times," Talabani told reporters, referring to recent terrorist attacks in Egypt; he called their silence "gross negligence." The stampede marked the largest one-day death toll since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Talabani was also responding to criticism from Arab leaders about Iraq's newly drafted constitution, experts say. Amre Moussa, secretary of the Arab League, of which Iraq is one of the founding members, admonished Iraqi leaders for failing to meet Sunni demands to include a provision in the constitution calling Iraq an Arab state as well as an Islamic country. Talabani, a Kurd, says such a provision is unnecessary and unfair to Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities. "The other [Arab constitutions] do not have this text...Why do they not make such a demand from Sudan? Why this insistence on demanding it from Iraq? They know Iraq is a multinational country," Talabani said. Read more

db: Tough question...could it be, at it's root, that he is perceived by many as a US puppet?