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Iraq's
interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, criticised the
winners of the January elections yesterday, saying
they had "paralysed" the country by failing over the
past six weeks to agree on the shape of a new
government.
The new parliament meets for the first time tomorrow
in a sitting intended to usher in Iraq's first
elected national administration for decades.
But the two main political blocs - the Shia and the
Kurds - have yet to reach an agreement, plunging the
country into a political limbo.
Talks between the two groups began last night in a
marathon session intended to find a solution. But a
Shia spokesman said ''differences" remained and a
Kurdish official said that negotiations had "hit a
dead end".
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Allawi said the
impasse was "paralysing life in this country".
He added: "The country cannot remain as it is now.
There are things that need to be done and a decision
needs to be arrived at.''
Mr Allawi said that the delay threatened national
unity as it frustrated ordinary Iraqis who turned
out in their millions to demonstrate their
commitment to the political process by voting.
In the past two weeks insurgents have exploited the
political vacuum to launch a number of attacks on
the Iraqi security forces in addition to the Shia
community, which Sunni extremists hope to force into
a sectarian conflict.
"It should have been quicker. It has been
unfortunate that the winners have not yet decided
how and when," Mr Allawi said.
"I am not happy to be a caretaker prime minister. It
is not good for the country. There must be a
government. A decision has to be made and made very
soon."
The United Iraqi Alliance, the cleric-backed Shia
group that won a majority of seats in the
parliament, and the Kurdistan Democratic Alliance,
which came second, met in Baghdad last night to try
to break the deadlock.
The government has to be a coalition because the
assembly must approve senior government posts with a
two thirds majority.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shia, is the proposed prime
minister. In return for Kurdish support Jalal
Talabani, the former guerrilla fighter, would be
named for the largely ceremonial post of president.
The dispute is primarily over the future of the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds want
incorporated into Kurdistan, and Kurdish insistence
that their peshmerga militia - not the Iraqi army -
be responsible for the security of their
semi-autonomous region.
A compromise agreed last week in which the future of
Kirkuk would be determined after the government was
convened collapsed at the weekend when the Kurds
announced that they wanted a written agreement
before a coalition could be formalised.
The Kurds - who make up only three million of Iraq's
27 million population - know the Sunni election
boycott has placed them in a position of political
power as the parliament's kingmakers that they might
never again enjoy.
But the Shia, and particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, Iraq's most important cleric who has
been driving the political process, are firmly
opposed to regional autonomy that threatens the
unity of the country. Ayatollah Sistani's
representatives have said it is a reversal of the
democratic principle, with the minority imposing its
will on the majority - although Kurdistan's oil
wealth and the traditional Arab supremacy in Iraq
are likely to be important motivations in the Shia
intransigence.
The two groups' inability to agree can only provide
political advantage for Mr Allawi, whose cabinet
will remain as a caretaker government until a new
one can be announced.
www.telegraph.co.uk
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