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BAGHDAD, Iraq — The spiritual leader of Iraq's
Shiite majority Saturday called on bickering
politicians in the clergy-backed United Iraqi
Alliance (search) to set aside differences and form
a government more than a month after landmark
elections.
Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum, an alliance deputy, said
they agreed the National Assembly would convene "no
later than March 15."
Another deputy, Fattah al-Sheik said pressure would
be put on interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi "and
the Kurds" so that a cabinet would be ready by that
date.
Allawi's party finished third with 40 seats in the
assembly, compared to the alliance's 140 and the
Kurdish coalition's 75. He has been trying to build
his own coalition in an effort to keep his job.
The alliance's decision to set a date came after a
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani demanded that its
members stop bickering. Al-Sistani was the guiding
force behind the alliance.
Sheik Fawaz al-Jarba, one of the few Sunni Arabs in
the alliance, said after meeting al-Sistani in Najaf
that the cleric urged the group "to unite and to
form the new government as soon as possible and not
to delay this issue any longer, and that the
interests of Iraq and Iraqis should be their first
priority."
The alliance needs a two-thirds majority, or 182
seats, to begin the process of establishing a
government and making Ibrahim al-Jaafari prime
minister.
"Al-Sistani demanded that we put aside minor matters
and that we should be united. I am not comfortable
with the delay in holding the assembly," said Mudhar
Shawkat, a senior official in Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi
National Congress.
He said failure to convene the assembly "represents
an insult to Iraqi voters."
Abbas Hassan Mousa Al-Bayati, head of the alliance's
Turkomen bloc, said a parliament speaker would be
named on the day the National Assembly convened.
"It seems that the general opinion is leaning toward
the parliament speaker being a Sunni Arab and the
president being Mr. Talabani," al-Bayati said.
Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, and one of the two parties in the Kurdish
coalition, has long been the Kurds choice for
president.
A Sunni Arab speaker would go far toward appeasing
the minority, which is thought to make up the core
of the insurgency, and like the Kurds makes up about
15 to 20 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. But
unlike the Kurds, Sunni Arabs largely stayed away
from the election.
Al-Bayati said the candidates would include interim
President Ghazi al-Yawer and interim Minister of
Industry Hajim al-Hassani.
But the main sticking point in forming a government
has been the alliance's inability to broker a deal
with the Kurds.
Kurdish leaders have demanded constitutional
guarantees for their northern regions, including
self-rule and reversal of the "Arabization" of
Kirkuk and other northern areas. Saddam relocated
Iraqi Arabs to the region in a bid to secure the oil
fields there.
Redha Jawad Taqi, a spokesman for the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said
"Kurdish demands are negotiable. We can meet them
100 percent if the demands do not affect others,
such Arabs and Turkomen. If this is not achievable,
then we should look for compromise."
Adnan Mufti, who heads the PUK office in northern
Irbil, said talks between Kurdish officials and the
head of the alliance, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, were
"positive" and that the Kurds were "optimistic."
In Baghdad, Sgrena left in an Italian government
plane and was met at Rome airport by Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi. She had been abducted in Baghdad
on Feb. 4.
Berlusconi, an ally of the United States who has
kept Italian troops in Iraq despite public
opposition at home, has demanded an explanation from
the United States, and in a five-minute conversation
with President George W. Bush received assurances
that it would.
In Baghdad, U.S. Col. Bob Potter said coalition
forces were "aggressively investigating the
incident."
About 200 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq in
the past year, and more than 30 of the hostages were
killed.
Florence Aubenas, a veteran war correspondent for
France's leftist daily Liberation, and her
interpreter, Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, were also
abducted nearly two months ago.
In other violence, gunmen in two vehicles west of
Baghdad, in Abu Ghraib, killed an Iraqi army
officer, said Capt. Akram al-Zubaie.
Gunmen killed a Turkish driver and an Iraqi Kurdish
official in two separate attacks in this northern
city of Mosul on Saturday, witnesses said. Witness
Mohammed Jassim Ali said the assailants began
shouting afterward, saying they belonged to Al Qaeda
in Iraq and that they shot the driver because he was
carrying supplies to American troops.
AP.
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