ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Iraqi government needs to show to the people it is making progress in the war on corruption, the country’s highest Shiite religious authority said in a meeting with the United Nations special representative.
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani met with Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, head of the UN mission in Iraq (UNAMI), in Najaf on Wednesday.
Sistani said the Iraqi government has “big tasks” ahead of it and needs to show “signs of progress and success” early on as it combats corruption, improves services, and eases the “suffering of the people, especially in the province of Basra,” according to a statement from his office.
Deadly protests rocked Basra last summer, driven poor electricity supplies, dirty water, high unemployment, and anger over rampant corruption.
Sistani said politicians must shake off the old ways of doing things or “there won’t be a real chance to resolve the current crisis.”
Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert walks in Najaf on her way to visit Iraq's Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on February 6, 2019. Haidar Hamdani/AFP
Another priority he highlighted is the need for reconstruction of war-damaged towns and cities, and assistance helping families still displaced by the conflict return home, without discrimination against any ethnic group.
“This has to be one of the priorities of the government. This is what will contribute to decreasing the danger of extremist thoughts growing again in these areas,” Sistani said, calling on the international community to help Iraq in that regard.
Sistani also indirectly addressed the mandate of American troops in Iraq, which US President Donald Trump recently said he wants to extend to “watching Iran.” Lawmakers in Baghdad have flatly rejected that as a possibility.
The influential Shiite cleric said Iraq does not want to cause harm or be used to “as a way to harm other countries.”
Instead, Iraq wants peace and to work on joint interests without interfering in the affairs of others or having its own affairs interfered with, he added.
Abbas Kadhim, director of the Iraq Initiative at the Washington DC-based think tank Atlantic Council, said Sistani’s comment “settles the debate.”
“While this is not phrased as a fatwa, trust me, in Iraq, it will play like one,” he tweeted.