The 10-point "Makkah Document" was issued by 29 clerics from both sides of Iraq's religious divide when they gathered on Friday in Saudi Arabia during Ramazan under an initiative by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
The document draws on verses of the holy Quran and sayings of the revered Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), and stipulates that "spilling Muslim blood is forbidden".
It also calls for safeguarding the two communities' holy places, defending the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq and the release of "all innocent detainees".
The declaration was welcomed as "a positive step" on Saturday by Adnan al-Dulaimi, who heads the National Concord Front, the largest Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parliament.
"We call on the authorities, the parties, the tribes and religious leaders to stick to the declaration and to support it," Dulaimi told a Baghdad news conference.
"The government has a major role to play in implementing the document, especially with regard to freeing prisoners," he said.
But according to Abdul Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the religious leaders' appeal for the bloodshed to cease is likely to fall on deaf ears.
"Despite its doubly symbolic character, this appeal will suffer the same fate as the one issued after last November's Cairo conference, held under the aegis of the Arab League," Atwan told AFP.
"The Cairo conference, staged under American pressure, was aimed at promoting national reconciliation. Instead it gave rise to civil war. The Makkah meeting, ordered by (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice during her recent visit to Arabia, is mere crying out in the wilderness.
"The Arabs can do nothing for Iraq because they want to cure an incurable disease through the power of prayer, chanting and talismans, just like dervishes," Atwan added.
"What many thousands of soldiers have been unable to achieve on the ground because of the struggle by resistance groups, who were knowingly ignored and sidelined (from the meeting), cannot be brought about by declarations of good
intentions."
Former Iraqi diplomat Dargam Abdullah al-Dabbagh, now a political science professor at Amsterdam's Free University, believes that "the absence of Ayatollah al-Sistani or even a representative of this emblematic Shia figure, and of (radical Shia cleric) Moqtada al-Sadr" from the Makkah meeting was "very significant".
Ironically, even as the Makkah Document was being signed by the religious leaders, deadly clashes were taking place between Iraqi police and militiamen loyal to Sadr in the southern Shia city of Amara.
"Those invited to Makkah don't have any political weight. They don't have a say in the matter and are not authorised to take binding decisions," Dabbagh said.
"Iraq doesn't need declarations of good intentions. Only the combatants have a clear political vision in fighting either American or Iranian hegemony. That's what empowers them."
Dabbagh believes the Makkah meeting "at least showed mediation by Saudi Arabia, which is trying to limit the damage to Iraq and prevent the situation from engulfing the entire region".
Saad al-Faqih, a Saudi dissident exiled in London who heads the Islamic Movement for Reform in Arabia, is more forthcoming.
"In fact the Saudis do not want an end to the occupation. It is their sole guarantee against Iranian expansion in Iraq and against the success of the resistance. If the Americans pulled out, the resistance would become a large-scale jihad in the entire Arab peninsula," he said.
"The government is looking only to reduce the violence in Iraq, which has grown worryingly in recent weeks," Faqih added.
"The Makkah meeting will not make the Iraqi countryside more attractive. It served only to show the religious leaders embracing each other for the television cameras."

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006