On October 19 and 20, Iraq’s senior Sunni and Shia religious leaders will hold a meeting in Makkah. The meeting is being convened on the initiative of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) with the goal of stopping the bloodshed in Iraq.

In a press release, the OIC said that the Makkah initiative is focused on ending religious sectarian conflict in Iraq rather than seeking a broader reconciliation among various Iraqi factions.

“The Organization saw the necessity of taking an initiative aimed at stopping the turmoil in Iraq out of consciousness of its responsibility before Allah, the Islamic Ummah and history, and in order to prevent the shedding of Muslim blood and to eradicate disorder in Iraq,” OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said in the statement.

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