BAGHDAD — The international police organization Interpol stepped squarely into a bitter political and sectarian fight Tuesday when it responded to a request for help from Iraq to arrest the country’s fugitive Sunni vice president on charges he ran death squads inside Iraq.
The move is likely to add fresh tensions to relations between Iraq’s Shiite leadership and leaders in Turkey, where the Iraqi vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, has been staying with the apparent blessing of the Turkish government since he fled his refuge in northern Iraq last month.
Iraqi authorities want al-Hashimi returned to Baghdad, where judges are waiting to prosecute him on terrorism charges in what could be one of Iraq’s most politically charged court proceedings since Saddam Hussein’s trial about six years ago.
