IRAQ: DE GREGORIO- THERE IS A CHANCE TO SAVE TAREQ AZIZ

senator Sergio De Gregorio, President of the Italian Delegation for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, is currently in Erbil on invitation by Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani. While there he asked President Barzani to “intervene to save Tareq Aziz's life.” President Barzani called the heads of all Iraqi parties to Erbil and, at the same time, tentatively promoted the composition of a national unity government by ethnic Iraqis. Barzani raised the question of Tareq Aziz's death sentence and “advised the path of tolerance and respect for life rather than revenge and hate." Senator De Gregorio said "the Kurdistan President assured me that his position is not a suprise: “You don't wash blood with blood and I find the thirst for revenge of my people, offended by the many deaths and the terrible genocide, has transformed into a culture of respect for human life,” Barzani reportedly told De Gregorio. “I have also said that even the wife of Saddam Hussein and his children could stay in Iraq, because they are not guilty of massacres and ethnic cleansing. Tareq Aziz is a sick old man and I don't think that sparing his life changes anything."