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BAGHDAD (Reuters)
- Leaders of Iraq's Sunni and secular communities
gave a cautious welcome on Friday to a plan to bring
foreign experts to Baghdad to review the results of
this month's election, which they say was
fraudulent.
They said they would cooperate with the experts and
still hoped to join Shi'ites and Kurds in a grand
coalition government capable of healing Iraq's
sectarian wounds and providing its people with the
basic services they so badly need.
Efforts to resolve the standoff came amid fresh
setbacks for Iraq, with Sudan announcing plans to
shut its embassy, apparently to ensure the release
of kidnapped staff, and the closure of a major oil
refinery because of fears of insurgent attacks --
prompting longer-than-usual queues for fuel in the
capital Baghdad.
"If the refinery stays shut, the queues at fuel
stations will get longer and I imagine I can see
I'll have to wait more than three hours for petrol,"
said Sadiq Shamikh, 28, as he lined up to fill the
tank of his taxi in Baghdad.
"Wasting time means losing money for me."
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has taken over
direct control of the powerful Oil Ministry against
the will of the incumbent minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum,
officials confirmed.
A ministry spokesman allied to Bahr al-Uloum said
the country was facing an oil supply crisis.
"Production in the north, centre and south is about
to suffocate," he said.
It could be several months before a government
emerges to tackle such problems, though the will to
form one persists despite days of complaints by
Sunni and secular leaders that they were robbed in
the December 15 election.
Eager to placate their anger, the Iraqi Electoral
Commission (IECI) has invited two Arab League
representatives, a Canadian politician and a
European academic to Baghdad to review the disputed
results.
Although there seems little they can do to change
the outcome of the vote very much, their presence
could help bring disgruntled Sunnis on board.
"This is intended to please some political factions
who have asked for this," IECI chief Hussein Hindawi
said. "Their evaluation will probably solve this
political crisis."
Other electoral officials said the move was a
face-saving bid that would allow some Sunnis and
secularists to back down from demands for a vote
rerun without alienating their supporters.
CAUTIOUS WELCOME
The Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the main Sunni
bloc, gave the initiative a cautious welcome.
"The arrival of this committee shows the
international community has responded to our
demands," said party official Iyad al-Samarraie.
"(But) if we see it is willing only to check
technical irregularities, we'll have to think about
what to do."
Partial but near-complete counts show the Shi'ite
Islamist coalition which forms the backbone of the
present government should have nearly half the seats
in the new parliament.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of one of the two main
parties within the coalition, outlined his vision of
a federal Iraq in which the Shi'ites have
significant autonomy.
"Just as federalism was the right choice in the
Kurdish areas of Iraq, so it is in the middle, in
the south, in Baghdad and all other Iraqi cities,"
Hakim said in Kurdistan.
Those federal issues, enshrined in a constitution
opposed by Sunnis, will top the agenda for Sunnis
hoping to amend the charter once the new parliament
convenes; many of them fear Kurds and Shi'ites will
deprive their community of oil revenues.
The Shi'ites and Kurds have been holding bilateral
talks in northern Iraq this week while violence
continued further south.
At least five people were killed and 23 wounded when
two mortar shells landed in central Baghdad on
Friday. One hit a coffee shop, killing people as
they played dominoes, while the other destroyed a
car, police said.
Sudan said it would shut its embassy in Baghdad, one
day after al Qaeda's wing in Iraq announced it was
holding five Sudanese embassy staff kidnapped last
week and demanded that Khartoum cut its ties with
Baghdad within 48 hours.
"Sudan has decided to close its diplomatic mission
in Iraq and to withdraw its diplomatic staff," Jamal
Ibrahim, the Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman,
told Reuters by telephone. He had no further
comment.
In a separate development, a senior U.S. commander
said on Friday that inspections of two Iraqi-run
jails, prompted by the recent discovery of a bunker
packed with mistreated prisoners, found overcrowding
and signs of prisoner abuse.
Reuters
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