Cairo, April 22, SPA -- Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sunday that he has ordered a halt to the U.S. military construction of a barrier separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiite areas in Baghdad, the Associated Press reported. The U.S. military announced last week that it was building a three-mile-long and 12-foot-tall concrete wall in Azamiyah. U.S. and Iraqi officials defended plans for the barrier as an effort to protect the neighborhood, but residents and Sunni leaders complained it was a form of discrimination that would isolate the community. A large protest was scheduled for Monday in the area. In his first public comments on the issue, al-Maliki said Sunday that he had ordered the construction to stop. "I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," al-Maliki said during a joint news conference with the secretary-general of the Arab League. "There are other methods to protect neighborhoods, but I should point out that the goal was not to separate, but to protect."--SPA www.spa.gov.sa/443472