Hundreds of Iraqi Leaders Call To Join Abraham Accords

Hundreds of Iraqi leaders called to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel. The call came on Friday at a conference held in Irbil, Iraq, the capital of autonomous Kurdistan, organized by the New York-based think tank, the Center for Peace Communications.

Four Muslim or Muslim-majority countries – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords with Israel last year. Iraq has officially been at war with Israel since its founding in 1948. Iraqi Kurdistan maintains contact with Israel.

Participants in the conference included Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim tribal leaders, social activists and former military commanders. Among the speakers at the event was Chemi Peres, son of the late Israeli President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres and head of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation.

The Iraqi government rejected the call for normalization with Israel on Saturday, saying in a statement that the meeting in Irbil was “not representative of the opinion of the population and that of residents in Iraqi cities, in whose name these individuals purported to speak.” It also called the conference an “illegal meeting.”