with the new prime minister, a move that could help break political
deadlock.
The mainly Shia Muslim government is locked in a fight with Islamic
State (IS), an extreme Sunni group leading an insurrection in the
north.
Fighting has flared up in mainly Sunni Anbar province, west of
Baghdad, parts of which have been under IS control.
In New York, the UN imposed sanctions on IS members and another group.
Unconfirmed reports emerging on Friday night suggested IS rebels have
killed at least 80 men of the Yazidi faith in a village called Kocho,
45km (28 miles) south-east of Sinjar.
"They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this
afternoon," one Kurdish official Reuters news agency.
"We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed."
Yazidi and Christian people in northern Iraq have faced persecution by
the jihadists, prompting US-led air strikes and aid drops and calls
for other Western states to arm opponents of IS.
At an emergency EU meeting in Brussels, the 28 member-states were left
to decide individually whether they would arm Iraq's Kurds, the main
opponent of IS in the north.
IS-led violence has driven an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis from their
homes. Whole communities of Yazidis and Christians have been forced to
flee in the north, along with Shia Iraqis, whom IS do not regard as
true Muslims.
Chink of hope
A group of leaders from restive Sunni provinces issued a joint
statement addressed to new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who
took over from Nouri Maliki on Thursday.
They said they could join the new government if the security and civil
administrations in their areas were given equal status to that of the
central government.
But they demanded that the Iraqi authorities stop the bombardment of
Sunni provinces and cities, and said that local people should be
allowed to run Sunni provinces.
Calling for a reform of the Iraqi army, they asked for the release of
political detainees, an end to executions and the withdrawal of
militias from Sunni cities.
In order to drive a wedge between Iraqi nationalist Sunnis and Islamic
State, the Iraqi Sunnis must first be won over - not only by giving
them seats in government, but by empowering them in their own areas.
Many have said they would then turn on the Islamist radicals and there
are signs that it may have started to happen in some areas.
In 2007 the Sunnis drove al-Qaeda out of western Iraq altogether. This
will be a much tougher affair.
If it is to stand a chance, the Sunnis will need all the help they can
get from Iraqi government troops, Kurdish Peshmerga forces and
American airpower. Nor can it really start in earnest until a solid
new power-sharing deal is struck in Baghdad.
The removal of Mr Maliki, who was hated by the Sunnis, has provided a
chink of hope in Iraq's crisis, BBC World Service Middle East editor
Sebastian Usher reports.
There is no doubt that Sunni tribes are essential to any solution, but
it will take a great deal to restore any of their trust in central
government, he says, noting that other Sunni leaders have already
dismissed the political transition as all but meaningless.
Fighting flared up on Friday with IS militants in Anbar.
AFP news agency quoted a Sunni tribal leader, Sheikh Abduljabbar Abu
Risha, as saying an "uprising" was under way against IS, while Anbar
police chief Maj-Gen Ahmed Saddak said security forces were backing
the fight to drive out IS.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shia cleric,
threw his weight behind the new Iraqi prime minister on Friday.
BBC
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