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BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi politicians set March 16
for the opening of the country's first
democratically elected parliament in modern history
as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a
leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.
The more powerful prime minister's job will go to
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who
leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which
the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the
most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani.
"This was one of our firm demands and we agreed on
it previously. The agreement states that Jalal
Talabani takes the presidential post and one of the
United Iraqi Alliance members takes the prime
minister's post," Talabani spokesman Azad Jundiyan
told The Associated Press.
He added, however, that the clergy-backed United
Iraqi Alliance also reached a preliminary agreement
with the Kurds on their other conditions, including
extending their territories to include Kirkuk.
Baghdad's new Shiite governor, Ali Fadhil al-Imseer,
took office Sunday to become the city's first
democratically elected municipal official since the
fall of Saddam Hussein.
In Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen killed
a prominent Sunni Arab politician. Hana Abdul Qader,
a lawyer and former member of Mosul's previous city
council, was shot while leaving her home, said Noor
Al-Din Saied, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic party
in Mosul.
U.S. soldiers assigned to the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force and Iraqi forces arrested more
than 60 suspected insurgents in the city of Haswa,
31 miles south of Baghdad, on Saturday, the U.S.
military said Sunday.
State-run Al-Iraqiya television also reported that
Barham Saleh, a Kurd who is deputy prime minister
for national security affairs, confirmed that the
275-seat National Assembly elected in January would
convene March 16.
That is the anniversary of the 1988 Saddam-ordered
chemical attack on the northern Kurdish town of
Halabja, which killed 5,000 people. Saleh met with
alliance leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim on Saturday when
the alliance convened to discuss the issue.
"The United Iraqi Alliance proposed to convene on
March 15, but we proposed the 16th, the anniversary
of Halabja massacre when Saddam ordered his army in
1988 to kill Kurds with chemical weapons. On this
day we want to denounce this massacre as we
establish a new democratic parliament," Jundiyan
said.
Al-Jaafari and the alliance agreed on Talabani's
presidency during a March 3 meeting with Kurdish
leaders in northern Irbil. Kurds had long wanted the
job for Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan.
The alliance, which won 140 seats in the assembly,
needs the 75 seats held by a Kurdish coalition to
gain the two-thirds majority needed to elect a
president and two vice presidents, the first step
toward setting up a government under a prime
minister.
Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who controls 40
seats in the assembly, also has been negotiating to
keep his job.
Officials have said the post of speaker probably
would go to a Sunni Arab — either interim President
Ghazi al-Yawer or interim Minister of Industry Hajim
al-Hassani.
A Sunni Arab speaker would go far toward appeasing
the minority, which is believed to make up the core
of the insurgency and, like the Kurds, represents
15-20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people.
But unlike the Kurds, Sunni Arabs largely stayed
away from the election to protest the U.S. presence
in the country.
Kurdish demands include an autonomous Kurdistan as
part of federal Iraq and a share of region's oil
revenues. They also want to maintain their peshmerga
militia and want a bigger share of the national
budget.
Their demand for a federal state, though, would
require redrawing the Kurds' current autonomous
state borders to include Kurdish areas — oil-rich
Kirkuk among them — that were dominated by Saddam
loyalists and Sunni Arabs.
"According to a primary agreement with Kurdistan
Alliance slate, the United Iraqi Alliance agreed on
the four demands of the Kurds and our
representatives in Baghdad are meeting with United
Iraqi Alliance officials to discuss these demands in
details," Jundiyan said.
He added that the Kurds and the United Iraqi
Alliance agreed March 16 to convene the National
Assembly "and before that we are seeking to get an
official guarantees about our demands."
Chalabi, whose own party is part of the alliance,
said no deal had yet been made with the Kurds —
especially concerning Kirkuk.
"There are no obstacles at all, there are friendly
negotiations with the Kurds because we have been
allies for a long time and have common
understandings," Chalabi told the Al-Jazeera
television network. "There are two authorized
committees, one represents the United Iraqi Alliance
and the second represents the Kurds, that are
negotiating over these issues in Baghdad."
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