Iran Seeks Islamic Summit to Discuss Standoff in Najaf

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called on Islamic countries Friday to convene an emergency meeting to discuss what he called the catastrophe in Iraq, particularly the standoff in Najaf.

Khatami urged the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference to hold the summit to decide on immediate action to end the escalating violence in the holy city, where militiamen loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces.

“What is happening in Iraq is a spiritual and human catastrophe and immediate action must be taken to stop the spread of the catastrophe,” Khatami said in a telephone conversation with the organization’s chief, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

It was unclear whether a meeting would be held.

The militants have been using the shrine, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest, as a hide-out while attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, when asked about Iran’s call for a Muslim discussion of Iraq, urged Tehran to support Baghdad’s leadership.

“What Iran needs to do is to be helpful to the interim government in Iraq and helpful to the Iraqi people as they move to build a free and peaceful future, and not take steps that would be harmful in that respect,” he said.

In Tehran, Iranians staged protests Friday over the violence in Najaf and condemned “the slaughter of the Iraqi people and the desecration of holy sites and cities of the country by the U.S. military in Iraq.”

In his conversation with Abdullah, who is also Malaysia’s prime minister, Khatami said that the Iraqi interim government was facing a difficult situation in Najaf and that Iran was interested in seeing a stable Iraq.

“Allowing these conditions to continue and keeping silent in the face of these events will create grater problems for us,” Khatami said.