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Shiites pressure Kurds on government, Dr.
Barham Saleh
3.3.2005
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BAGHDAD, March 3 (AFP):
Iraq's Shiite parties meanwhile upped their pressure
on the Kurds to join them in a new government.
Elections held in January, the first free vote in
the country in half a century, confirmed the rise to
power of the long-oppressed Shiite majority and the
demise of the Sunni Arabs who dominated under
Saddam.
But more than a month later the government has still
not been formed.
The front-running Shiite candidate for prime
minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, travelled north this week
to Kurdistan to meet the top two Kurdish leaders to
try to bolster his position. |
Senior Kurdish leader
and interim deputy prime minister Barham Saleh told
AFP that the Shiite list was putting heavy pressure
on the Kurds.
"It took them two to three weeks before they settled
on a candidate (Jaafari) and they demand from us
immediately to give a yes or no vote, be patient,"
Saleh said. |
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Ahmed Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon favourite to be
Iraq's new leader who is now on the Shiite list,
said the 275-member national assembly should open
with or without an agreement on the government
line-up.
"People have voted for this list and they are
waiting for this parliament to meet," he told AFP,
adding that the assembly can convene if 20 percent
of members request this.
Chalabi, who fell out of favour with his US backers
over suspicion of leaking intelligence to Iran and
is wanted in Jordan on fraud charges, also said
Iraqi officials were continuing talks with
insurgents to try to stop the violence.
"We have already started this process, we are
meeting with people who want to fight occupation,"
he said.
The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance won 140 seats in
the election, while the Kurdish Alliance took 77
seats. The Kurds are pressing demands for written
guarantees on a federal state and on the final
status of the disputed northern rich oil city of
Kirkuk.
The national assembly requires a two-thirds majority
to pick the president and two vice-presidents, who
then pick the prime minister.
Outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqi
List took 40 seats in the elections, is still in the
running for the post of prime minister and is in
talks with Kurdish leaders. His spokesman denied
Wednesday persistent rumours that he had settled for
a role in the opposition.
AFP
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