Iraq held the first meeting of a homegrown peace initiative, with the country’s top leaders vowing to reconcile the warring factions amid protests over US meddling.

“This is an Iraqi initiative for those who are part of the political process,” Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told reporters Saturday, while the speaker of parliament urged US-led coalition forces not to interfere.

Parliament speaker Mahmud Mashhadani, a conservative Sunni Islamist, said the committee would work to persuade groups which have opposed the political process to lay down their arms.

“We will contact those who oppose us on certain issues and will try to convince them and tell them the detail of the project to win their consent,” he said, standing alongside Maliki and Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

With a month-old security operation apparently making little headway, Iraqi leaders hope the reconciliation committee will draw in those groups prepared to compromise, while isolating violent extremists.

Those who oppose his government’s policies are free to do so, the prime minister said, but those who reject the peace process in favor of violence would be “pushed into a corner”.

Mashhadani bluntly told his audience of UN officials, foreign experts, politicians and civil society representatives that Iraqis had little use for advice on running their country or foreign-sponsored conferences.

“What we need is reconciliation between Iraqis only — there can be no third party,” he said.

This appears to be the closest thing to an indigenous group of Iraqis trying to sort out their nation — since the Crusade to bring Democracy to the Middle East was sold to American taxpayers. Only time will tell us if it’s successful.

Certainly, it’s refreshing to see a group of Iraqis together in one place — discussing a political struggle for their future — without a requisite seal of approval in a language foreign to that beleagured land.