Iraq's Fugitive Vice President Travels to Qatar BAGHDAD - Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president left the country on Sunday for a diplomatic trip to the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, his office announced, a development that threatened to stir new tensions just days after officials in Baghdad hosted a lavish meeting to repair ties with other Arab nations. In a statement, the office of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi characterized his trip as a normal diplomatic mission to meet the Qatari emir and prime minister, followed by visits to a few other unspecified countries and then a return home. The Qatar News Agency said he would stay in Qatar for several days. But Mr. Hashimi is a lightning rod for Shiite leaders in Baghdad, who have grown increasingly frustrated over the past three months as he has flouted their attempts to prosecute him on terrorism charges. In late December, Mr. Hashimi fled to Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region after the government accused him of using his bodyguards as a personal death squad and issued an arrest warrant. Since then, he has lived under the protection of Kurdish officials, who refuse to turn him over for a trial in Baghdad. "How could they let him leave?" said Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. He is prevented from traveling. This is a violation. And receiving him in Qatar is a violation. Mr. Moussawi called on Interpol, the international police organization, to arrest the vice president. Mr. Hashimi has denied all of the charges and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt. Iraqi leaders used the high-profile Arab League summit meeting as an opportunity to present Iraq as a functioning, stable country and to mend rifts with powerful Sunni Arab neighbors. But Qatar sent only a low-level envoy to the gathering; the Qatari prime minister called it a "message" to Shiite leaders in Baghdad about the growing sectarianism in Iraq and the disenfranchisement of the country's Sunni minority. Although Mr. Hashimi is a polarizing figure even among Iraq's Sunnis, the accusations against him, unveiled in a televised news conference complete with grainy videotaped confessions, created an uproar at a tenuous moment last year, just one day after the last American forces departed. The case deepened a rift between Mr. Maliki and his largely Sunni political opponents and cast light on a growing sectarian divide in Iraqi politics. Although the immediate political crisis has eased, Iraq's government is still a welter of enmity, bitterness and dysfunction. Leaders are hoping a national meeting on April 5 will smooth over the worst problems. Mr. Hashimi's office said he would return to his temporary headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan, but any attempt to re-enter Iraq could set off a struggle between Iraqi authorities in Baghdad and Kurdish officials who run the airport in the region's northern capital, Erbil. In a news conference on Sunday, Mr. Maliki declared that Iraq's central government was the only entity that controlled the country's airports, borders and airspace.