TEHRAN, Aug 20 (AFP) - Iranian reformist president Mohammad Khatami on Friday asked the heads of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to urgently convene "to try to find solutions to the deepening Iraqi crisis," state media reported.
Khatami`s request came when he called up the current chairman of the OIC, Malaysian prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
He urged him "to call on members of OIC countries to meet in an emergency summit to try to find solutions to the deepening Iraqi crisis.
"The Iraqi interim government is in a difficult situation vis-à-vis the crisis in the holy city of Najaf, ...immediate action must be taken to end the escalating violence in that city," the Iranian president said.
US and Iraqi government forces are besieging rebel militia of cleric Moqtada Sadr in Najaf, a city sacred to Shiite Muslims, who make up 90 percent of Iran`s 66.5 million people are Shiites.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi called for an urgent meeting of Iraq`s neighbours to help end the crisis there, marked by both Sunni and Shiite insurgencies against the government and the US-led multinational force that support it.
"It is time for Iraq`s neighbours to contribute to a resolution of the Iraq crisis," Kharazi was quoted as saying during a telephone conversation with his Jordanian counterpart, Marwan Moasher.
Four other countries neighbour Iraq, besides Iran and Jordan: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. Their foreign ministers have had a number of meetings since the US-led invasion that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in March last year.