Coordination Framework pledges to "defend the legitimacy" against al-Sadr's "coup" 

Shafaq News/ The Coordination Framework said it will defend "the legitimacy of the Iraqi state" against Muqtada al-Sadr's calls to "overthrow the state and constitution".

In a statement he issued earlier today, al-Sadr, the arch-foe of the Shiite Coordination Framework, instructed his followers to push for a complete overhaul of the political system, including a new constitution, and expel the country's elites whom he condemned as "corrupt".

The Coordination Framework, in a statement on Sunday, reiterated the call for dialogue with all the political parties, "particularly the brothers in the Sadrist movement."

"Unfortunately, we have witnessed relentless escalation and lamentable unfold of the events that is tantamount to a coup against the people, state, institutions, constitution, and election," the statement said, "it is a call for an overhaul of the constitutional legitimacy that has, for years, enjoyed the support of the people, the religious authority, and the international community."

"It is a perilous matter that brings back memories of the bloody coups Iraq witnessed for decades during the era of the dictatorship before the change," it added.

"The Iraqi people offered millions of martyrs, prisoners, and the displaced people, and filled mass graves with the bodies of their sons in order to remove dictatorship and terrorism, and establish a free federal democratic system," said the statement.

"We, the Coordination Framework, announce that we will stand by the people to defend the people's rights, the legitimacy of the state, the political process, the constitution... and we will defend them as much as we can."