UNITED NATIONS, March 17 (UPI) -- The top U.N. envoy in Baghdad, who has called for bridging the sectarian divide in Iraq despite recent violence, does not believe the country is on the brink of civil war but warns it could be descending "into some sort of un-governability."
"Sectarian violence has become as much of a threat to the security of Iraq as insurgency violence," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative Ashraf Qazi, speaking with reporters at U.N. World Headquarters in New York Thursday.
It was also the day the Iraqi parliament convened for the first time since its election three months ago and the day after Qazi reported to the U.N. Security Council on the need for Iraqis to transcend divisions.
While citing a curfew that kept Baghdad relatively quiet on Parliament's opening in face of an insurgency and seemed to put a lid on retaliation following bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra Feb. 22, Qazi said, "There are a set of longer term measures which are required in order to build up dialogue, communication, trust, so that the situation doesn't remain ... hostage to the perpetration of an outrage or two."
He said a "feeling, right now widespread, is that were another incident to take place, the whole situation could once again come unstuck and further drift toward some kind of civil war. I don't personally believe they are anywhere close to a civil war but a descent into some sort of un-governability."
There was something else that could make the Iraq's future darker.
"There is a fear that, if, God forbid, a Samarra-like outrage was visited upon the Iraqi people again, some of the political leadership might even lose control over the streets, which would worsen the situation," Qazi said.
"I do believe that you do have the Iraqi security forces, that you do have the (U.S.-led) multi-national force, so there is an impediment or blockage that would not allow for the situation to escalate to the extent that would be normally characterized as a civil war. But you have a very difficult, complicated, bad sectarian situation right now.
"A worrisome situation," he called it.
"At the same time, the government is preoccupied and so are all the political leaders with the government formation process," the envoy said, adding there was "urgency to form a broad-based government or government of national unity as early as possible in view of these challenges" which ... have complicated that process."
Qazi was hopeful, of course, explaining Iraq traditionally was not pitted along religious lines.
Wednesday he cited Annan's report, saying "sectarian violence has emerged as a main threat to the security and stability of Iraq."
Qazi told the council sectarianism was "fed by growing mistrust between communities despite the fact that in their daily lives and in their individual attitudes towards each other, most Iraqis emphatically reject and transcend this divide."
He went on to tell the panel of 15 overcoming the sectarian divide was "the responsibility of Iraq's leadership which, if not undertaken with the urgent priority it requires, will severely undermine efforts at promoting security and strengthening national cohesion."
Qazi underscored his argument to reporters Thursday.
"There are always people who are what they are nationally and they also have their local identities be they sectarian, be they ethnic or be they regional or whatever," he said.
"All of that is very natural but for a country successfully transitioning a process such as Iraq is doing right now it is extraordinarily important for them to keep that national focus and the Iraqis do have a sense of national focus and ... a sense, of being Iraqi.
"They also have a self-image of being secular, essentially, and that they see the present phase of identity based on politics as being something of recent vintage and they hope to transcend that," Qazi said. "By and large that is the Iraqi opinion and I must say that on the street Iraqis, when they deal with each other, do not deal with each other as Sunni and Shiite.
"Every day, Iraqis in their daily lives transcend the sectarian divide. That is a very good thing," he said.
"At heart the base for a secular, non-sectarian political situation is right there, even when they have lived under a tyranny they have been under -- what you might call a secular sort of tyranny. They see themselves in those terms.
"Of course they have their history. Of course every society has maybe traditional fissures and all, but they haven't, traditionally, defined the politics of Iraq," Qazi said.
"There may be some danger confronting Iraq of that situation developing, but the Iraqis I think overwhelmingly wish to, and (are) now determined to, transcend that divide. That's the basis for hope despite the challenges of the moment."
As for the moment, it is the eve of the third anniversary of the U.S. led invasion.
Asked how that played on the street, he said, "I would say not with respect to any date but with respect to the moment, that Iraq is at a very crucial time and the Iraqi people have to come together to address the challenges that confront them and come really to address them with a national context."
