BAGHDAD: Tribal leaders and scholars from Iraq’s Sunni heartland offered their conditional backing for a new government that hopes to contain sectarian bloodshed and an offensive by Islamic State militants.

One of the most influential tribal leaders said he was willing to work with prime minister-designate Haider Al-Abadi provided a new administration respected the rights of the Sunni Muslim minority.

Ali Hatem Suleiman left open a possibility that Sunnis would take up arms against the Islamic State fighters in the same way as he and others joined US and government forces to thwart an Al-Qaeda insurgency in Iraq between 2006 and 2009.

Al-Abadi faces the daunting task of pacifying the vast western desert province of Anbar, where Sunni frustrations with the sectarian policies of outgoing premier Nuri Al-Maliki have goaded some to join the Islamic State insurrection.

Taha Mohammed Al-Hamdoon, spokesman for the tribal and religious leaders, said Sunni representatives in Anbar and other provinces had drawn up a list of demands.

Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani said the handover of power offered a rare opportunity to resolve the crisis.

Al-Sistani told the country’s feuding politicians to live up to their “historic responsibility” by cooperating with Al-Abadi.

Al-Abadi himself, in comments online, urged his countrymen to unite and cautioned that the road ahead would be tough.