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BAGHDAD – A senior Shiite lawmaker says a Sadr City cease-fire has been signed in an effort to stop fighting.

The deal was officially signed Monday between five representatives of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and four member of the main Shiite political bloc.

Khalid al-Attiyah, the deputy parliamentary speaker, says Iraqi government forces will be able to enter Sadr City as early as Wednesday.

The U.S. military has expressed hope for a diplomatic solution to seven weeks of fighting in Sadr City, which houses nearly half the capital’s six million people.

Fighting in Sadr City flared in late March after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on armed Shiite factions in the southern port city of Basra.

(AP)

Now from Voices Of Iraq:

Baghdad, May 12, (VOI) – A leading member in the ruling Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition revealed on Monday that the UIC and the Sadrists, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, agreed on ending escalatory campaigns against one another by adding two to the 14 points agreed by both sides to end the crisis in Sadr City.

“The two points added were the cessation of any escalatory media campaigns, namely accusations against the government, and the formation of ad hoc committees to receive complaints against security forces’ excesses on citizens’ rights,” Haider al-Abbadi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

On the mechanisms to implement the agreement, Abbadi said there was a UIC committee formed to implement the items four days after the agreement.

Asked on whether military operations on Sadr City would stop, he replied that if mortars “fired all over Baghdad from Sadr City stopped, then there would be no reason for a military action.”
“Security forces, after those for days expire, would be deployed in all neighborhoods of Sadr City. They should not be resisted or fought,” he said.

Abbadi noted that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would order cashing financial assistance for all families in Sadr City to surmount this “tough” stage, in addition to a wide-scale campaign to provide services and reconstruction in the eastern Baghdad district after security conditions became stable.

An official spokesman for the government had confirmed the agreement reached with the Sadrists on Friday evening with the objective of “sustaining the stability and security in Sadr City.”

“There are talks between a UIC delegation and the brothers from the Sadrist bloc, and a 14-point agreement was reached,” Ali al-Dabbagh told VOI on Saturday.

“The agreement included the clearing of all explosive charges and mines in Sadr City, the closure of all illegal courthouses, ending all armed activities, and acknowledging that the Iraqi government is the sole party that runs security affairs and makes the decision to send any forces to any area to impose order and security,” Dabbagh noted.

The Sadrists’ relations with the government have been marred by tension during the last week of March when Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. troops, launched a military campaign codenamed Saulat al-Forsan (Knights’ Assault) in the southern Iraq port city of Basra, 590 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, with the aim of tracking down what Maliki called “outlaws” and imposing the state power.

The campaign involved clashes between the government forces and gunmen believed to be members of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militias. The clashes extended to Baghdad and other provinces but stopped after a call by Sadr to end all armed activities on the streets.
The clashes, however, renewed on nearly a daily basis in Sadr City, where U.S. warplanes intervened. The tension grew stronger when Maliki called for disbanding the Mahdi Army or else the Sadrists would be denied participation in the provincial council elections, scheduled late this year, but cleric Sadr refused.

The Sadrists have 30 out of a total 275 seats in the Iraqi parliament, which they entered as part of the UIC that comprises Shiite parties including Maliki’s Dawa, and Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).
The UIC is the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 83 seats.

The Sadrists had quit the Maliki government, where they occupied six ministerial portfolios, in April 2007 due to the government’s rejection of their demand to “have a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.”