Bahrain Shiite opposition withdraws from talks

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

DUBAI - Bahrain's main Shiite opposition bloc, Al-Wefaq, said on Sunday it was pulling out of a "national dialogue" with

Al-Wefaq says national dialogue will not reach radical political solution to crisis in Bahrain but instead complicate political crisis.

 

 

the government on political reform because the talks were not aimed at achieving serious results.

Khalil al-Marzuk, who led the bloc's delegation to the talks, said that Al-Wefaq had decided to pull out and the decision would be confirmed on Monday by its Shura (consultative) council, or leadership.

"We have tried but without success to make it a serious dialogue," the Wefaq official said, adding that the bloc would not take part in a session of the dialogue later on Sunday.

In a statement, the Shiite movement said the dialogue would "not reach a radical political solution to the crisis in Bahrain but instead complicate the political crisis."

It was "vastly under-represented and marginalised in the dialogue ... whose results have been determined in advance," Al-Wefaq said. It did not want to be liked to a process "whose results could be far removed from the political will."

Since the July 2 launch of the national dialogue, aimed at political reforms after Shiite-led protests were crushed in a bloody crackdown in March, Al-Wefaq has called for a government led by a parliamentary majority.

Al-Wefaq has stressed it is not calling for the fall of the regime in Shiite-majority Bahrain, which is ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty.

The bloc decided only at the last minute to participate in the dialogue, encouraged by the international community, including the United States whose Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain.

The group won 18 of 40 seats in Bahrain's last parliamentary elections, but its MPs resigned in protest at violence against pro-democracy demonstrators.

Authorities said 24 people, including four police, were killed in unrest on the streets between mid-February and mid-March. Hundreds of activists were arrested in sweeps that carried on after the protests were crushed.

 

 

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