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BAGHDAD (Reuters)
- There was still no sign on Monday that Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani was about to call for
parliament to convene despite having announced two
days ago that he would issue such a decree.
Nearly three months after a December election,
Iraq's divided political leaders are still fighting
over the crucial post of prime minister in the new
government.
The impasse has delayed the formation of a unity
coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds that
Washington has promoted in the hope of fostering
stability and allowing U.S. troops to begin
withdrawing.
It has created political uncertainty as Iraqi and
U.S. troops battle to curb violence that has killed
well over 500 people since the February 22 bombing
of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, an attack that
pushed the divided country toward civil war.
President Talabani, leading a group of Sunnis, Kurds
and others opposing the nomination of Shi'ite Prime
Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, on Sunday sent an envoy
to meet top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
to help break the impasse.
Sistani, a semi-recluse in the city of Najaf, is not
directly involved in politics but has huge influence
over the bulk of the country's 60 percent Shi'ite
majority.
Talabani, a Kurd, also met delegates from radical
Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose support last
month was crucial to Jaafari's surprise nomination
by the Shi'ite bloc.
Under fire for security and economic problems since
he became interim premier last year, Jaafari is
battling to keep his job.
RELATIVE CALM
The streets of Baghdad were calm with residents
going to work and school after enjoying a few days
of relative peace in the Iraqi capital after the
government announced a daytime curfew on Friday, the
Muslim day of prayers.
But the peace is always deceptive.
Though there were few incidents on Sunday, two
cousins and the nephew of the secretary-general of
the Muslim Clerics Association, the main Sunni
religious body, were killed when gunmen ambushed
their car in western Baghdad.
The U.S. military reiterated on the weekend that any
plans to withdraw would depend on the situation on
the ground in Iraq. The military was responding to
British newspaper reports on Sunday that it planned
to pull its forces from Iraq early next year.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror,
sourcing the stories to senior British defense
officials, said a plan for U.S. and British forces
to withdraw in spring 2007 followed an acceptance by
the two governments that the presence of foreign
troops in Iraq was now the greatest obstacle to
peace.
But General Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint
Chiefs of Staff, denied the reports and said
withdrawal of 133,000 U.S. troops would depend on
the security situation in Iraq.
"We're going to do exactly what we said we were
going to do, which is to make the assessment of the
situation on the ground," Pace said in an interview
on U.S. television
Reuters
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