BAGHDAD: Tuesday’s sit-in by supporters of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr outside the supreme court raised the stakes in a conflict with an adversarial coalition.In order to monitor the situation, caretaker prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi cut short a trip to Egypt, where he was scheduled to participate in a summit of five nations.
According to his office, Kadhemi “urge on all political parties to remain calm and to seize the chance for national discourse to get the country out of its current dilemma.”There has not yet been any violence as a result of the deadlock between the Sadrists and their opponents in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework.
According to journalists, the Sadrists, who have been encamped outside of parliament for the previous three weeks, set up tents outside the gates of the judicial body’s headquarters in Baghdad on Tuesday morning.
Ten months after an unreliable poll failed to produce a majority government, they carried posters calling for the dismissal of parliament and new elections.However, the sit-in started to wind down in the evening after Saleh Mohamed al-Iraqi, a close friend of Sadr, issued a statement urging them to back off.
After the sit-in had been going for around 10 hours, protesters were urged to leave “while keeping tents up,” but they could “continue the sit-in in front of parliament if you desire.”
