Tariq al-Hashimi - Former Vice-President of Iraq HARDtalk

Kenya. Now it is time for HARDtalk. Welcome

to HARDtalk. Arab leaders have called the situation in Iraq the

most dangerous in its history and a threat to overall regional security.

Jihadist fighters from the Sunni militant group ISIS ` deemed too

extremist even by Al`Qaeda ` have seized control of a big chunk of

Iraqi territory, including the country's second biggest city Mosul.

Thousands have fled their homes triggering a humanitarian crisis.

Iraqis have been urged to take up arms against the militants,

increasing worries of a sectarian bloodbath. My guest today it is

Tariq al`Hashimi, the fugitive former vice president of Iraq. What

should Sunni leaders like him do to stop the country fragmenting?

Tariq al`Hashimi, welcome to HARDtalk. Do you think that more of

Iraq could fall into the hands of the fighters from ISIS? Thank you.

Please try to correct your information about what is going on

in my country. What has happened in Mosul on the 10th of June is a

desperate people revolting. ISIS is just part of many groups who are

very active in making the change happened in a Mosul and several

other cities. Let us try to look at things as actual underground. ISIS

is just part of the groups. They are not everybody. They are not the

whole movement in my country. Tony Blair said on BBC TV that the

starting point in this crisis is to identify the nature of the battle.

It is against Islamist extremism. That is the fight, isn't it? Not

necessarily. What happened in the Mosul on the 10th of June, we should

not look into this event separate from what has been done since 1.5

years. Six months after the invasion, the aggression of the

Prime Minister. It is just an extension of the anger and

revolution of desperate Sunni people who left behind and lost interest

with the political process, who lost interest with the international

community. They were left with no other option but to raise their

hands and to try and restore. You are referring to the fact that

Fallujah fell to ISIS and then Mosul. I use a that the leader of

ISIS speaks for the downtrodden Sunni Arabs in Iraq? I am not

denying. I am not `` trying to give the rightful side of ISIS in the

crisis. They maintain a strong existence and influence on the

ground. There is no doubt about that. Do not tell me of all the

development in these cities and provinces are dominated by ISIS.

ISIS could be the most active fighters in the whole operation. But

it is quite unfair to just ignore 14 armed groups. The present the

operation. Part of it is ISIS. We understand that. You, Tariq

al`Hashimi, formerly vice president until earlier this year of the

country, usually in Turkey because the government has tried you in

absentia and sentenced you to death, which is why you are in Turkey. But

you have got to ISIS in these Sunni heartlands in Iraq. Does it not fall

on leaders like you to distance themselves from these extremists?

Definitely. We have a different agenda. We have a different

programme. We believe in a real state of democracy. The rule of law.

Definitely. We are not part of the extremists. The extremists are not

part of us. The Americans or the Iraqi army were not able to clean

our provinces from al`Qaeda. The Sunni tribes successfully confronted

them. The fact is, I am going to ask the international community, what

sort of reward is being granted to the tribes? They have been rewarded

with the aggression of the government and against the cities.

You have to speak out. Do you agree with the Sunni mainstream leaders

from the Muslim scholars Association who issued a statement last week.

They support the insurgents fighting against the United States, but have

rejected the call of ISIS to storm the Shia holy cities, urging Arabs

to embrace their Shia countrymen. Surely that is the message people

like you should be driving to Iraqis? Definitely. The bottomline

is quite clear. We are not adopting any sort of discrimination agenda

against the Shia. We do not have any hard feelings against people in the

country. They are our brothers. Sorry to interrupt you, why did you

say after the fall of Mosul, I bless the revolution of the oppressed,

downtrodden and marginalised people in Mosul? I am talking about the

Sunni communities. It sounds like you are welcoming the actions of

ISIS. That is misleading. I am going to persecute them. They just mislead

the my message on my Facebook page. I did not say that. I did not

support ISIS. All I said, this is the revolution of desperate people.

Whatever circumstances, I would never try to mix things together. We

are not extremists. Our agenda is quite clear. I said clearly, they

are not welcomed in our territories. The problem is, the international

community has left us behind. I made many appeals to international

communities, to the United Nations, the United States. I travelled to

Europe. You are a mainstream moderate among the city `` Sunni

communities. Do you agree with the statement that the Sunni community

in Iraq is willing to go to the devil to defeat the Prime Minister.

This is where the danger lies. I am not in agreement. I cannot tell you

more about the tragedy. We lost hope. We need to salvation. This

salvation should be fulfilled beyond what has been done in my country

over 11 years. The political process, we lost hope in democratic

means to rectify the systematic drifting of the political process.

The Prime Minister ruined everything. It came in his control.

Is it too late? Can you answer the point that we have seen the last two

or three years, ISIS embedding themselves in the Sunni Arab

communities in Iraq. Is it too late for the moderate mainstream like

yourself to try and eliminate them from these communities? Can you do

that? This is not our priority. They are fighting for maintaining and

putting an end to injustice. For corruption, for discrimination. I

must be very clear on that. We have an objective and ISIS is fighting

for the same objective. You are saying that you are fighting with

the same objectives. Our ISIS moderate leaders like you willing to

put aside your animosity with the Prime Minister in the interests of

defeating ISIS? We will not be part of the extremist agenda. Simple as

that. We have our agenda and we are fighting for our agenda. The

extremists have their own agenda. We are not core operating with them.

But they are on the ground. There are influential. You tell me, why

are they becoming so strong? Because of the discrimination being

exercised by the Prime Minister. Because the United States have

delivered the destiny of my country in the hands of Iran. We have hard

feelings about what is going on. We are being treated as second`class

citizens. We cannot tolerate that. As soon as we lost control. Do not

forget in 2008, our message. Please try to revise your possession. No

longer fight the Americans. The Americans will abandon our country.

Try to be part of the political process. They listened to our

message. They joined forces. After three years, they just discovered

that as we have been misleading them, they are now behind bars, in

prison. They are becoming refugees. I do not worried? You talk about

alienation and discrimination of the Tariq al`Hashimi community `` Sunni

community in Iraq. I.e. Not worried that your ally yourselves that

global jihad is threat? ISIS has some Western fighters with them.

They want to establish a caliphate that does not respect national

borders. Are you not worried about that?

I am not! You said you share the same objectives. No, it has happened

like that. I'm not the party who should be blamed. What do you do ``

do you do now? You should blame the Americans! Not me. Security is not

in my hands. The security file is in the hands of the Americans and...

You shouldn't blame me for that. I was asking you what you would do

because you know that there are more direct Sunni Muslims in Iraq, like

the Speaker of the Parliament, who says he will have talks to try to

see if they can find a way to stop ISIS gaining more ground. ``

moderate Sunni Muslims. I am also very much interested in a plan of

salvage. A political solution to the current crisis. But where is the

mediator? As I said, they have just been left behind. For many years, I

kept sending reports to the UN, the Security Council, the United

States, to try to draw their attention to the growing extremism

in our community. But nobody listened. They aren't productive.

They are now actively gained, when things are becoming blurred. ``

active game. Now, Western countries awaken and say, what happened? We

are caught by surprise! I couldn't understand this sort of policy and

attitude. But you do accept that, after decades, even centuries, of

the Sunnis being the rulers of Iraq, the Sunni Arabs only make up 15% of

the population, the Kurds are also Sunnis. But 65% of the country is

sheer. Do you accept that you have two reverse those decades and

decades of sheer pressured, when Saddam Hussein ruled over them? ``

Shia oppression. And perhaps you Sunnis are finding that difficult? I

don't agree. The figures you mentioned are misleading. I ask you

to give me the background and research from where you got it. All

right, what is your figure for the Sunni `` Sunnis in Iraq? We are not

a minority. We are not a minor component, we are a prime component

in Iraq. OK, the Shia community could be as many as 56%. But they

are not exceeding... Secondly, OK, even if they are the majority, is it

fair that I should be blamed for all the mistress, the hurt, they

suffered from the previous regime? `` Miss `` problems. I accepted to

be a politician in a peaceful political process. I made all my

people angry because I opted for that. Then, when it came to the

referendum on the cross edition, I educated my people to go and vote

yes. `` Constitution. Where did you go from here? Where do you go from

here and how does Iraq face what the Arab league has described as the

most dangerous period in its history? How do you deal with this?

What is your solution? The problem is beyond the capacity of the Iraqis

to shoulder a loan. My appeal to the UN is to share the responsibilities,

without any further delay or relaxation. They should try to

dedicate themselves to resolve the Iraqi crisis. First of all, we, as

representatives of the Sunni row communities, we are very much in

need of a fair statement. `` Sunni immunities. I will never accept

these allegations in the international media. They try to

paint the ISIS colour on the desperate people revolution. This is

in no way acceptable and I am frankly sane to make `` it makes my

people very angry. We accept that. We aren't saying... But the point I

am making is, how do you get out of this current crisis? You have said

quite clearly you do not want ISIS to advance, you don't share their

objectives, setting up an Islamic police eight. What do you do?

Caliphate. They may consider other options. What do you do? You say you

want the international community to come in. To do what? First of all,

at least the international community should invite a delegation from the

Arab Sunni row community. `` Sunni. To our aspirations. At least to

explain why my people now are becoming so angry and raised their

arms against the Maliki government. There must be justification. It

isn't an agent of ISIS, it is an agent of fighting the

discrimination. I would like to hear a fair statement issued by the

Security Council, that they are understanding the revolt of the

desperate people. We would like the understanding of international

community and then in due course we could open the par`4 a dialogue. ``

par`4 a dialogue to put things under control. What do you want? For

example, would you want to see the Prime Minister stepping down? Do you

want concessions from the Shia led government? What do you want to

alert the international community about? It is premature now, after

the developments on the ground. I think things are being changed now.

In the past, a few weeks ago, we were very much hoping that Maliki

would become open`minded and resign. But, regardless of the national

rejection, even the Shia projecting him, he persists as prime minister.

`` rejecting. In April, in the elections, he won three times as

much as his nearest rival. His faction won 92 seats out of 328 in

the Iraqi parliament, far more than any other group. He does have a

democratic mandate. You have to accept that? We had the same size of

votes. We voted in 2010. Why are the people being deprived to form a

government? We shouldn't play games. We are talking about the elections

just now. Regardless of the number of votes that Maliki God, it's yet

to be seen... Forming the majority. Now we have Shia, the Kurdish, the

Liberals, all of them are just about to announce this new and what

happened in Mosul of boards the attempt by this political entities.

Would you like to see foreign boots on the ground in Iraq to try to stop

the advance of ISIS? Definitely not. I'm not welcoming all in agreement

that the Iraqi crisis is in need of more force. What we need is more

wisdom. OK. Wrigley, could Iraq breakdown into a Shia part? ``

briefly? An autonomous region in the north? Could it fragment, briefly?

This could happen but it would be unfortunate for all in Iraqis. I

won't hope to see that. Then, you think that in Iraq we could see

sectarian bloodbath in the short term? We have seen some Shias in the

country taking up arms. Could we see sectarianism blow out of proportion?

Unfortunately, this is becoming quite possible. I am expecting also

a severe and dramatic reaction from the extremists and ordinary people,

who must take action to protect themselves. Yes, I am unfortunately

expecting bloodshed and this is why I am urging the United Nations

Security Council to step in and try to find a solution for my country.

Tariq al`Hashimi, thank you very much indeed for coming on HARDtalk.

There was a real contrast with the weather through yesterday. A real

cool, cloudy and disappointing day