Excluding Baathists from national reconciliation ‘legal’, says lawmaker

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: Lawmaker from the Kurdistan Alliance (KA), Muhsen al-Saadon, said on Friday that the national reconciliation realized great successes in the past stage, noting that excluding Baathists from it is legal and constitutional. “The Iraqi constitution and laws ban Baathists’ inclusion in the national reconciliation as a result of crimes they perpetrated against the Iraqi people,” al-Saadon told IraqiNews.com news agency on the sidelines of the National Accountability and Reconciliation Conference in Arbil. “The ruling system in Iraq is different than any ruling system in the whole region because it’s a constitutional parliamentary democratic system needs the Iraqi people’s support,” he said, adding that on this base a number of reconciliation conferences were held and all blocs and parties took part in them, except the Baath party, asserting that the exclusion of Baathists is completely legal and constitutional. SH (P) 1