News / Iraq

Iraq’s Sadr bloc to introduce bill to criminalize normalization with Israel

Monday, 25 April 2022 4:51 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 25 April 2022 4:59 AM ]

Iraqi lawmakers attend the first session of the new Iraqi parliament in Baghdad, on January 9, 2022. (File photo via Reuters)

The political bloc of Iraq’s influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is set to submit a bill criminalizing the normalization of ties with the Israeli regime.

“The Sadrist bloc and its allies ... will soon announce a draft project to criminalize normalization and dealing with the Zionist entity at all,” Sadr wrote in a tweet on Saturday, adding that the bill would be forwarded to the parliament for a vote.

The “issue of normalization and Israeli ambitions to dominate our beloved Iraq,” he said, “was one of the core reasons that got the Sadrist Movement involved with the electoral process again.”

Sadr’s coalition won more than 70 seats in the October parliamentary election.

The top Shia cleric previously slammed a gathering that was held in Iraq’s Kurdistan region last September with the aim of pushing for joining the so-called Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with the Tel Aviv regime.

Back then, he said Erbil “must forbid such terrorist Zionist meetings.”

Iraqi groups denounce 'treacherous' event on normalization with Israel

Iraqi groups firmly reject a Friday gathering in the country’s Kurdistan region with the aim of pushing for full normalization with Israel.

Back in September 2020, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed normalization deals with Israel. Morocco and Sudan later signed similar agreements with the Israeli regime as well.

The so-called Abraham Accords were pushed by the US under former president, Donald Trump.

Palestinians have denounced the normalization deals, describing them as a “stab in the back” and a “betrayal” to their cause.

Late last year, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry reiterated Baghdad’s support for the Palestinian cause, stressing that the Arab country categorically rejects any normalization scheme with the Tel Aviv regime.

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