The Helsinki Meetings Culminate in Baghdad
Padraig O'Malley has brought the main Iraqi political parties a step closer to reconciliation.
The initiative, known as the Iraq Project, is an effort of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, the Institute for Global Leadership of Tufts University, and Crisis Managment Initiative of Finland with suport from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Finland.
Two confidential meetings in Helsinki, Finland and a third in Baghdad, have brought together Iraqis to explore with South African and Northern Irish negotiators the political basis for political reconciliation in Iraq. The first round of talks concluded in September 2007, the second in April 2008. And in July 2008, the Helsinki Agreement, composed of 17 principles and strategies to assure their compliance, was signed by 33 politicians from Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, Turkmen, Communist and other parties. NY Times
As Project Director, Padraig O'Malley commented in a lecture at the Kennedy Library in Boston on May 8, 2008: "The Helsinki talks process . . .is based on the simple premise that people from divided societies are in the best postion to help those in other divided societies."
READ the talk: "The Helsinki Talks: A Step Forward for Iraq or More Timeouts?"
LISTEN to the talk: MP3 (May take a few minutes to load)
IN THE NEWS
O'Malley's Op-Ed on the July 2008 Baghdad Meeting Boston Globe .
HEAR Terri Gross interview O'Malley on Fresh Air
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Martin McGuinness and Sheik Humam Hamoudi, head of the Constitutional Reform Committee of the Iraqi parlaiment.