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Mar
13, 2005 — BAGHDAD/ARBIL (Reuters) - Talks
between Kurdish leaders and a Shi'ite bloc to form
the next Iraqi government have collapsed three days
before the country's first fully elected parliament
meets, senior politicians said on Sunday.
Between them the two groups have the two-thirds
majority needed to form the government and their
failure to reach a deal could leave Iraq in
political limbo and further delay efforts to improve
security and rebuild the country.
Ahmad Chalabi, a leading member of the Shi'ite bloc,
the United Iraqi Alliance, returned empty-handed on
Saturday from a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan to try and
save the proposed Kurdish-Shi'ite alliance.
"The meetings have collapsed. There was no deal," an
aide to Chalabi told Reuters.
Kurdish politicians went further, saying the Shi'ite
alliance was trying to blame them for the crisis
that has paralyzed decision-making in a country
plagued by guerrilla bombings and starved of
investment needed for rebuilding.
"They want to lay the responsibility for the
political equation solely on the Kurdish side,"
interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd,
told al-Arabiya television.
"We are willing to sacrifice the presidency to the
Shi'ites if the Shi'ites sacrifice the premiership
to a Sunni," Salih said ironically, reflecting
Iraq's failure to put aside sectarian divisions
cultivated by toppled leader Saddam Hussein.
((Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Baghdad and
Shamal Akrawi in Arbil, editing by Alistair Lyon)
Reuters
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