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BAGHDAD, April 7 (AFP) - Iraq's new
presidential council was set Thursday to name a
Shiite prime minister after choosing a former Kurd
rebel leader as the country's first freely elected
president.
MPs predicted a new government should be in place by
next week, with Shiite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari
set to be named prime minister and Jalal Talabani as
president, paving the way for a new government more
than two months after landmark polls.
The appointment of Jaafari, leader of the Dawa
party, a Shiite religious faction, will usher in a
new era for the majority Shiite community, at the
head of Iraq's government for the first time after
decades of repression.
The main task for parliament and the new government
will be to oversee the drafting of a new
constitution and pave the way for fresh elections by
December.
The election of Talabani by the 275-member
parliament was a major political victory for Iraq's
long-suffering Kurdish minority, which was violently
oppressed by ousted president Saddam Hussein's Sunni
Arab-dominated regime.
Shiite Islamist Adel Abdel Mahdi and outgoing Sunni
president Ghazi al-Yawar were elected as Talabani's
two deputies during the session in Baghdad's
fortified Green Zone after weeks of wrangling over
the line-up of the three-man presidency.
As he was sworn before a giant Iraqi flag, Talabani
pledged to heal the country's sectarian divisions.
"We will spare no effort to present Iraq as a model
of democracy ... We hope to consolidate national
unity ... regardless of religious and sectarian
backgrounds."
Talabani told reporters his presidency meant that
"all Iraqis are equal before the law. It means that
there is no discrimination, that all Arabs, Kurds
and other nationalities have the same rights."
He also reached out to nationalists among Sunni Arab
insurgents, hoping to peel them away from hardline
Islamic groups like Al-Qaeda, which are blamed for
some of the deadliest attacks that have rocked the
country since the US-led invasion in March 2003.
"Those Iraqis who are carrying arms to fight foreign
troops, they are our brothers we can talk to to
reach a result," he said.
Talabani and his two deputies, who stood unopposed
after weeks of bartering among Shiites, Kurds and
Sunnis, were elected with the support of 228 MPs.
The assembly erupted in applause when the names were
announced, bringing to an end the tortuous
negotiations that risked losing the faith of Iraqi
voters who risked their lives going to the polls on
January 30.
The election of the three-man council drew a warm
welcome abroad, even from neighboring countries with
their own Kurdish minorities that have long worried
about Kurdish power in the new Iraq.
"This political process shows that every component
of Iraqi society has reached a consensus and is
willing to start drafting a permanent constitution,
which is the basis for rebuilding an Iraqi state and
putting an end to the occupation," Arab League
assistant secretary general Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Talabani
was an "experienced politician."
"He is someone who values Iraq's integrity.
Therefore I congratulate him."
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on welcomed the
choice of Talabani.
"The Secretary General congratulates Mr. Jalal
Talabani, as well as Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar and Mr.
Adel Abdel Mahdi, on their election today by the
Transitional National Assembly of Iraq as President
and Vice Presidents of Iraq," a statement from
Annan's spokesman said.
Saddam and 11 of his top aides were to have watched
the proceedings from their jail cells on a fortified
US base in Baghdad, Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar
Amin told AFP.
"There will be a place in jail for Saddam and the 11
to watch the TV to understand their time is
finished, there is a new Iraq and that they are no
longer ruling the country; so they can understand
that in the new Iraq, people are elected and they
are not coming to power by a coup d'etat," Amin
said.
MPs plan to switch their sessions to the old
parliament building used under the monarchy
overthrown in 1958, secular Shiite MP Ahmed Chalabi
said. The sandstone palace in the Green Zone houses
the defense ministry.
Underscoring ongoing violence in Iraq, a US soldier
was killed in an ambush in Baghdad, bringing to
1,535 the number of US soldiers who have died since
the invasion more than two years ago.
The Islamic Army in Iraq, a militant group that has
taken several foreigners hostage, meanwhile released
videotape in which it said it had decided to release
two Sudanese hostages a month after saying it would
execute them.
AFP
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