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He added the Kurds wanted to seal an agreement with
the Shiite list, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA),
and then bring other parties into the new
government, including outgoing prime minister Iyad
Allawi who has so far refused any post other than
premier.
Negotiations were expected to resume Monday after
the Kurds return to Baghdad, UIA members said.
Talabani, who is the frontrunner for Iraq's
presidency, was speaking after Kurdish leaders said
Sunday they were insisting on changes to a draft
agreement setting out the terms for an alliance with
the UIA, which has the largest share of seats in the
new parliament with 146 seats.
The Kurds, long oppressed by Iraq's Arab majority,
want iron-clad commitments that their tens of
thousands of peshmerga fighters will continue to
provide security in the three Kurdish provinces of
Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah and that no other
Iraqi force can enter the virtual autonomous zone
without the Kurdish regional government's
permission.
The Kurds also want concrete pledges that the new
government will resettle the tens of thousands of
Kurds expelled from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein over
three decades and that it will work to restore
territory to Kirkuk that Saddam apportioned to other
provinces.
For their part, the Shiites, poised for their first
real taste of political power, are eager to reach
out to Iraqi Kurds, Sunnis, Christians and Turkmen
in order stave off the threat of the country falling
into civil war.
The Shiites need the Kurds' 77 seats in parliament
to muster the two-thirds majority needed in the
legislative body to elect a presidency council which
in turn nominates the prime minister.
The plodding negotiations, six weeks after milestone
national elections, have triggered a wave of
criticism from Shiite religious leaders who have
demanded the government be put in place to tackle
the resistance behind daily attacks in the country.
UIA member and negotiator Samira Al-Mussawi hinted
there was dissension between Talabani and his rival
Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani on whether to
compromise their demands and join the government.
"Some parties are trying to reach some goals that
they fear will be difficult to reach in the future.
Among the issues that they keep bringing up is the
displaced Kurds and the status of the peshmerga
militia as part of the Iraqi army," Mussawi said.
Barzani said in a television interview Friday that
the Kurds wanted Kirkuk settled now and not left to
vague promises.
As the sides debated the shape of the next
government, the country's insurgency, which brings
together elements of Iraq's Sunni minority,
alienated by the rise of Shiites and Kurds in the
post-Saddam era, carried out attacks.
An Iraqi cameraman, Husam Hilal Sarsam, working for
a Kurdish-language television station was gunned
down in Mosul, hospital sources in the restive
northern city said.
Sarsam, a Christian who worked for the satellite
station of Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, was
kidnapped two weeks ago, a member of his family told
AFP.
And a pair of Iraqi civilians were killed and two
others wounded Monday when a car bomb targeting a US
military convoy exploded in Rashid, 25 kilometres
(19 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
In Baghdad, a bomb attack on the car of the director
general of the Iraqi health ministry wounded four of
his bodyguards Monday morning in eastern Baghdad, a
medcial source said.
AFP
Iraqi
cameraman working for Kurdish television killed in
Mosul
MOSUL, Iraq, March 14 (AFP) - 9h48 - An Iraqi
cameraman working for a Kurdish-language television
station was gunned down in Mosul on Monday, hospital
sources in the restive northern city said.
Husam Hilal Sarsam was killed at about 9:00 am (0600
GMT) on the northern side of the city, said Mohammed
Fathi, the head of security at Mosul's Medical City
hospital.
Sarsam, a Christian who worked for the satellite
station of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Masoud
Barzani, was kidnapped two weeks ago, a member of
his family told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In late February, the body of Raeda Wazzan, a female
producer with the local affiliate of state-owned
television Al-Iraqiyah, was found after she had been
abducted with her 10-year-old son.
Both Al-Iraqiyah and Kurdish television have been
involved in recent months in broadcasting televised
confessions of alleged insurgents in the Mosul area.
Many Sunni Arabs in this ethnically diverse city
have charged that Al-Iraqiyah was spearheading a
propaganda campaign to tarnish the image of the
resistance against the occupation.
An Iraqi press photographer working for a European
agency was killed in Mosul in October.
At least 50 journalists and other media workers have
been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of
Iraq two years ago.
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