Agence France Presse, 16 December 2005
DUBAI - Newspapers across the Arab world hailed Sunni Arab participation in Iraq’s largely peaceful election as a turning point in the war-torn country that will grant legitimacy to the new government.
“It was the voice of the Iraqi people that was being heard yesterday, not the bomb blasts of the terrorists,” said the Saudi English-language daily Arab News.
“The fact that so many Sunnis trooped to the polling stations for the first time, having boycotted the previous two national votes, sends the clear message that the community which most of the insurgents pretend to represent wants peace, not violence,” it added.
“Sunni participation achieved legitimacy of Iraqi elections,” read the headline in the top-selling Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar.
The Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat printed a front-page photo of a policeman helping an old man to reach a voting station in Baghdad under the banner headline: “All of Iraq voted.”
“In Iraqi standards, the polling day has ended peacefully” the daily said, noting pre-vote Al Qaeda threats of bombings aimed at intimidating voters.
Abu Dhabi-based newspaper Al-Itihad also applauded “the mass participation of Sunni Arabs” in the ballot and hailed the elections as “great success.”
“The jubilations of the Iraqi legislative polls were concluded yesterday easily amid a high turnout, mainly in the Sunni Arab dominated regions of Anbar, Salaheddine and Nineveh,” it said on the front page.
In Kuwait, Al-Qabas daily appeared optimistic about the future of the political process in its war-torn neighbour, with its headline claiming that the “Sunni en masse participation paves the way to form a balanced parliament.”
----------------------------
Citation: "Arab press hails Iraq vote as turning point," Agence France Presse, 16 December 2005.
Original URL: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2005/December/focusoniraq_December116.xml§ion=focusoniraq
----------------------------