Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    MOSCOW, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Moscow is worried about the escalation of tensions in Iraq and calls on the Iraqi parties to start a comprehensive dialogue, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said here Thursday.

    "Moscow is firmly of the opinion that the crisis in Iraq can be settled only by way of a comprehensive dialogue, a search for compromises, the achievement of real national reconciliation and accord between all ethnic and confessional communities of the country," Kamynin was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

    According to reports from Iraq, "fierce clashes between the Mahdi Army, controlled by Shiite religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and Iraqi government troops are taking place in Baghdad, Basra and a number of other cities," said Kamynin.

    "Dozens of people have died and hundreds are wounded. The work of state bodies is at a standstill. Muqtada al-Sadr is urging Iraqis to start a civil disobedience campaign and to continue armed resistance," he continued.

    "In the current situation, we urge political and religious leaders of Iraq to do all they can to stop the fratricidal conflict and to create conditions in this way for the building of a democratic and flourishing state, in which the rights of all its citizens would be observed, irrespective of their creed, nationality or political convictions," the ministry spokesman said.