Sep 6, 2007, 10:09 GMT
Johannesburg - The role played by veterans of South Africa's post-apartheid reconciliation process in getting warring Iraqi factions tentatively to agree to a roadmap for peace at secret talks in Finland emerged Thursday.
Roelf Meyer, Mac Maharaj and Aboobaker Ismail were in Finland to help guide the four-day talks that ended Monday after reportedly making 'huge strides' towards peace in Iraq.
The three had been involved in negotiations to end apartheid in the early 1990s - Meyer on the National Party side and Maharaj and Ismail on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC).
Meyer co-chaired the talks with Martin McGuinness, chief negotiator of Northern Ireland's nationalist Sinn Fein party and deputy leader of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The Irish team also included Protestant politician Jeffrey Donaldson, former Protestant extremist leader Billy Hutchinson and political consultant Quentin Oliver,
Speaking to the Johannesburg daily The Star Meyer said the Iraqis had been inspired by both the South African and the Northern Irish examples of conflict resolution through negotiation.
'The Iraqis saw the dynamics from us. Apartheid removed. (Northern Irish) Troubles accommodated. Baghdad next.'
The Irish shared their experience of negotiations leading to the 1998 power-sharing Good Friday agreement that ended over three decades of armed conflict in Northern Ireland.
The South Africans discussed the multi-party talks that led to the first multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which passed off major bloodshed or flight of white-owned capital, as had been feared.
Along with the successes both groups had also spoken of the problems they encountered and mistakes they made along the path to peace, Meyer said, admitting the resulting 12-point blueprint for peace dubbed the Helsinki Agreement had exceeded his expectations.
'We thought we would just get them together to talk to each other. They decided themselves to formulate these principles,' he said.
The seminar was organized by reconciliation group Crisis Management Initiative and headed by former President Martti Ahtisaari.
About 30 Iraqis, including representatives of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, were in attendance, British newspapers reported.
In addition to pledging to resolve their political differences peacefully, the agreement commits the Iraqi parties to consider the creation of a disarmament commission, and the formation of a group to deal with the legacy of Iraq's past.
They also seek an end to international and regional interference in Iraq's affairs.
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