Iraq's fugitive vice president was in Turkey Tuesday, his third stop in what he says is an official visit to regional countries that risks complicating Baghdad's relations with its neighbors. A statement issued late Monday by the office of Tariq Al-Hashemi, the top Sunni official in Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, said he arrived in Istanbul and plans to meet Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss developments in the region. It isn't clear how long Al-Hashemi intends to stay in Istanbul. Erdogan is currently on an official visit to China. Al-Hashemi is wanted in Iraq on terror charges for allegedly running death squads, government officials and security forces. Iraq's Shiite-dominated government issued a warrant for his arrest in December, touching off a political crisis in Baghdad and deepening the country's sectarian divide just days after the US military withdrawal. Al-Hashemi, who has denied the charges and says they are politically motivated, took refuge in the self-ruled Kurdish region in northern Iraq, where he is effectively out of reach from state security forces loyal to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Al-Hashemi's stop in Turkey is the latest on his first trip abroad since the terrorism allegations were leveled against him. At the start of the month, Al-Hashemi traveled to Qatar, where he met with the emir and the prime minister. He also gave an interview to pan-Arab television channel Al-Jazeera in which he said the charges were designed to push him out of Iraq's political process.
