Al-Iraqiya Coalition’s MP expresses surprise for talk that Mosul’s people support Baath Party.

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A Legislature of al-Iraqiya Coalition, led by Iyad Allawi, has expressed surprise on Thursday for talk that “people of north Iraq ’s city of Mosul , support Iraq ’s former ruling Baath Party.”   “We have not heard such talk by the National Coalition (led by Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki) or any other party that Mosul ’s people are supporters of Baath Party, because this Party did not stem from our city and we are not responsible for same,” Zuheir al-Aaraji told IraqiNews.com news agency.   Aaraji said that “such description lacks truth, because Baath Party had been active from north Iraq to its south, and the Party had ended, on both membership and ideology levels, and he, who carries such ideology shoulders responsibility for that.”   The Legislature of al-Iraqiya Coalition from Ninewa Province , with Mosul its center, Ahmed al-Jiboury, had stated for IraqiNews.com earlier that “the National Coalition does not want the return of Iraq ’s former Army officers, belonging to Mosul city, for service, under claims that they were linked to the Baath Party, calling for balancing in the Security Institution.”   Aaraji, meanwhile said that “ Mosul city had carried the military honor on vocational principles and not for the Baath Party, as it had defended Iraq , its principles, land and people, as a vocational principle and not as a political principle of the Baath.”   “As a matter of fact, the opposite had happened, when Baath Party executed a large number of Mosul’s officers, sacked others, for their anti-Baath positions, especially during the Iraq-Iran War (1980-88), under charges of their non-support for the Baath and due to their mere military and vocational position,” he said.   On his part, the Legislature of the National Coalition, Ali al-Shilah, told IraqiNews.com that “the Iraqi Army is for all Iraqis, and any talk about its partition to an Army representing different provinces can’t be allowed,” demanding al-Iraqiya Legislatures to “stop giving such statements that undermine the national cohesion,” according to his viewpoint.   SKH (FT) .