Iraq’s Sunnis must be given a greater role in the political process of the war-torn country in order to prevent the possible rise of organisations even more extreme than the Islamic State (IS), an Iraqi tribal leader told AFP on Wednesday.

“There is no doubt we must remove and defeat IS. But the absence of any political solution or national reconciliation will pave the way for more radical groups to emerge ?- some possibly even more radical than IS,” Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari, a leader of the mixed Sunni and Shiite al-Zoba tribe, said in an interview.

The 50-year-old has set up Peace Ambassadors For Iraq (PAFI), an organisation aimed at overcoming his country’s bloody sectarian divide between the Sunni minority and politically-dominant Shiite majority.

Al-Dhari says he launched PAFI last year in the Latvian capital Riga to coincide with Latvia’s stint as rotating president of the European Union and so forge contacts with Western diplomats.

 

Read More- France 24

Image Credits- The Atlantic