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IRAQ'S
new 275-member national assembly will hold its first
session next week with or without an agreement on
the line-up of the country's next government, a
Shiite official said today.
"The plan is to open the national assembly next
week," between March 6 and 10, said Jawad al-Maliky,
deputy to the front-running Shiite candidate for
prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari.
"We will open the parliament whether or not there is
an agreement," said Mr Maliky, who is Mr Jaafari's
number two in the fundamentalist Shiite Dawa party
and deputy speaker of the current interim
parliament.
"We want to reach an understanding before the
parliament and when we convene we want to have
reached an understanding about the government and
the ministries," he said.
Mr Maliky's comments were the firmest indication to
date that the Shiite political coalition, the United
Iraqi Alliance (UIA), wanted the next government to
get up and running.
The UIA, which won 140 seats in the January 30
national election, has started negotiations with
Iraq's Kurdish Alliance, which amassed 77 seats in
the vote and is pressing demands for a federal state
and guarantees on the final status of the disputed
northern rich oil city of Kirkuk.
A Western official based in Baghdad said Maliky's
announcement of an opening date for parliament was a
pressure tactic to force the Kurds to agree to join
a governing coalition.
Mr Jaafari met Kurdistan Democratic Party leader
Massoud Barzani yesterday, and was due to meet
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Jalal Talabani
today.
The Western official said it was doubtful the
parliament would really open next week, if Mr
Jaafari walks away without an agreement from his
Kuridstan visit.
Senior Kurdish leader and interim deputy prime
minister Barham Saleh told said yesterday the Shiite
list was putting heavy pressure on the Kurds to form
the government.
"It took them two-to-three weeks before they settled
on a candidate and they demand from us immediately
to give a yes or no vote, be patient," Mr Saleh
said.
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com
AP
Shiite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari met Kurdistan
Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani and other
party officials in northern Iraq in a bid to win
Kurdish support to lead the next transitional
government.
“We decided to continue the negotiations and create
an Iraqi government of national unity in which Arab
Sunnis should play a role,” Barzani told reporters
after they met for several hours in the Kurdistan
mountain retreat of Salahuddin on the outskirts of
Arbil.
The Shiite leader added the sides had “resolved some
points” but declined to elaborate.
Jaafari is due to visit the other main Kurdish
leader Jalal al-Talabani in Sulaimaniyah Wednesday.
The sides, which have bickered in the past over
Kurdish demands for wide-ranging autonomy, papered
over their differences as they vowed to create a
national unity government.
Jaafari, leader of the Dawa religious party, was
picked a week ago as the candidate of the United
Iraqi Alliance, which took 140 of the 275 seats in
the new National Assembly in the January election.
The Kurdish Alliance came second with 75 seats, and
has emerged as potential kingmaker in choosing the
next government. A smaller Kurdish party recently
joined it with its two seats.
The Kurds want the post of Iraqi president and a
commitment to a federal and secular Iraq as outlined
in the country’s transition laws drafted under the
previous US-appointed administration, top KDP
official Mohammed Ihsan told AFP.
They also want two of the main ministries such as
defence, foreign relations, finance and oil, said
the official, reiterating his bloc’s conditions for
supporting any new government.
Kurds will also demand that the multi-ethnic and
oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk be included in the
Kurdistan region as part of any deal on a future
Iraqi federation.
Interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd,
told AFP that any deal on Kirkuk and other Kurdish
demands would have to be in writing.
AP
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