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Iraq's new cabinet almost ready: Maliki
9.5.2006
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BAGHDAD (AFP) -
Iraq's prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki has
said that the line-up for the country's first
permanent government of the post-Saddam era was
almost ready, after months of tortuous negotiations.
"We will finalise the cabinet today or tomorrow and
will present the new government to the parliament
this week," he told reporters Tuesday.
Iraq's rival political factions have been wrangling
since the December election over the shape of a new
national unity government which it is hoped will
help quell raging sectarian violence and rein in the
Sunni-led insurgency.
"This is a government of all Iraqis and not of one
sect," Maliki said. "Iraqis have suffered enough
under the Saddam Hussein regime and they now need a
strong unity government."
Maliki said the cabinet was "90 percent" ready and
the candidates for the heads of the five key
ministries -- interior, defense, oil, finance and
foreign affairs -- had been finalised. |
Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki (L) talks to
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani during a meeting in
Baghdad's fortified 'Green Zone'
Photo: AFP |
"The candidates for the interior and defense
ministries are independents and not from any major
political party, nor do they have any links with any
militias," Maliki said.
Iraq's interior ministry, currently led by Bayan
Jabr Solagh, a Shiite, has been accused of operating
death squads which have engaged in extra-judicial
killings of Sunni Arabs.
Solagh himself is a member of the Supreme Council of
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a hardline
Shiite party which operates a well-organised
militia, the Badr Brigade.
Iraq's numerous Shiite militias have been accused of
killing Sunni Arabs in the sectarian bloodshed that
has killed hundreds of people since the bombing of a
revered Shiite shrine in February.
Maliki, who was selected last month after Sunni Arab
and Kurdish groups opposed outgoing premier Ibrahim
Jaafari staying in office, said the leaders were
giving the final touches for the new cabinet.
"I will meet some more candidates for other
ministries in these two days and I have the
confidence to solve the remaining issues and go to
the parliament," he added.
Maliki had said he would form a government of
national unity by May 10, although under the
constitution, he has until May 21.
The formation of the government is the latest stage
in Iraq's political transition since the ousting of
Saddam in April 2003 by US-led invasion forces.
The United States is hoping that a broad-based
government will help curb the daily bloodshed and
pave the way for the withdrawal of its 132,000
troops stationed in the country.
Maliki said he was opening the doors for armed rebel
groups to join the political process.
"If there are people who carried weapons to fight
the political process but do not have blood of
innocent Iraqis on their hands, I am ready to talk
to them and ask them to surrender their weapons and
invite them to join the political process."
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has held a series
of dialogues over the past few months with seven
armed groups which have been fighting the US-led
occupation of Iraq.
Maliki said he was not party to the Talabani talks
but added: "I am now ready to talk such groups."
Insurgent attacks and inter-communal violence has
left hundreds of dead, as armed groups exploited the
political vacuum since the December 15 election, the
second election for parliament since Saddam was
toppled but the first for a permanent government.
Hundreds of bodies of men shot dead execution-style
have surfaced across Iraq in tit-for-tat
Shiite-Sunni sectarian killings.
On Tuesday two delivery men working for an Iraqi
army catering service company were kidnapped in
northern Iraq, while the beheaded bodies of three
army soldiers were found in the south, security
officials said.
AFP
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