BAGHDAD, 16 October 2007 — In a major reconciliatory gesture, a leader from Iraq’s largest Shiite party has paid a rare visit to the Sunni Anbar province, delivering a message of unity to tribal sheikhs who have staged a US-backed revolt against Al-Qaeda militants.

The leader of Parliament’s largest Sunni Arab bloc, Adnan Al-Dulaimi, welcomed Ammar Al-Hakim’s visit to Anbar on Sunday as a “good initiative, saying Shiite-Sunni reconciliation was a goal cherished by his once-dominant Sunni Arab minority.

“This is what we hope, and we pray to Allah for,” Al-Dulaimi, whose three-party alliance has 44 of parliament’s 275 seats, told The Associated Press yesterday. “We pray to God to make our Shiite brothers ... give us our due rights and not monopolize power.”

Hakim’s visit to Anbar was the latest sign that key Iraqi politicians may be working toward reconciliation independently of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government, which has faced criticism for doing little to bring together Iraq’s Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.

Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi visited Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, last month at the holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad. The visit amounted to an unprecedented Sunni Arab endorsement of Sistani’s role as the nation’s guardian.

Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party also has been distancing itself from militant Sunni Arab groups and has in recent months forged closer ties with Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the country’s largest Shiite party, and the two major Kurdish parties.

Iraq’s Shiites account for about 60 percent of the country’s population, while the Sunni Arabs and the mostly Sunni Kurds make up most of the remainder. Hakim, son and heir apparent of Iraq’s top Shiite politician, struck a note of national unity in Anbar, where a tribal revolt has significantly reduced violence in the vast province and inspired similar anti-Al-Qaeda uprisings elsewhere in central Iraq and Baghdad.

Maliki’s government has grudgingly supported the uprisings, but has expressed concern that the new Sunni militias must operate under its control. “Iraq does not belong to the Sunnis or the Shiites alone; nor does it belong to the Arabs or the Kurds and Turkomen,” Hakim told his hosts in the provincial capital Ramadi, about 115 kilometers west of Baghdad. “Today, we must stand up and declare that Iraq is for all Iraqis.”

Meanwhile, Iraq insisted that US private security firm Blackwater and “other companies who commit crimes” leave Iraq after its guards opened fire in Baghdad a month ago killing up to 17 civilians. “From the beginning, the government wanted to replace this company after the incident,” Sami Al-Askari, adviser to Maliki, told AFP.

US State Department officials in Iraq, who employ Blackwater as their guards, had however asked that an investigation be held into the September 16 incident before any decision was taken, he added.