The government of Iraq has been holding discussions with various armed groups, both Sunni and Ba’athist, in an attempt to bring about some sort of reconciliation.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not name the groups, but indicated that they included groups connected to the old regime in the framework of reconciliation in order to stop the violence in the country.

Maliki said in a press conference in Baghdad that there is an opportunity for reconciliation through the conference on Iraq which will be convened in the Egyptian town of Sharm al-Shaykh this next month.

Last week President Jalal Talabani mentioned that five different armed groups have been contacted. He refused to name the groups, however.

Al-Jazeera Net reports that the usual unnamed source, this time from the security service, describes the groups as the Islamic Army, the 1920 Brigades, the Jaysh al Rashidin, the Fatih Brigades, and the General Command of the Armed Forces.

The Islamic Army is generally thought to be Ba’athist. The Middle East Media Research Organization (MEMRI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mossad, identifies Jaysh al-Rashidin as a Sunni Jihad group. The 1920 Brigade is a Sunni revolutionary group. The General Command appears to be another Ba’athist group with a large membership of Iraqi Army officers who were cashiered by the order of Viceroy Paul Bremer. Relatively little is known about the al-Fatih group.

It could be interpreted as a positive sign that PM Maliki’s government is engaging these Sunni groups. There can be no reduction in the civil war violence in Iraq without some sort of political settlement, which will require the Shiite government and its Sunni opposition to work out a reasonable arrangement for living together. Recent US efforts to forge alliances with Sunni tribal leaders could be a useful adjunct to this goal.