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Five Allawi's ministers boycott Iraqi
Cabinet
6.8.2007
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August 6, 2007
BAGHDAD, -- Five Cabinet ministers loyal to
Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein leader will boycott
government meetings, further deepening the political
crisis that threatens to swamp the administration of
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, two lawmakers said
Monday.
The boycott of Iraqiya List ministers loyal to
former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi leaves the
government, at least temporarily, with no Sunni
participants. It was a deep blow to al-Maliki's
attempt to craft reconciliation among the country's
majority Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds.
Iraqiya List lawmaker Iyad Jamal-Aldin said the
Allawi bloc had suspended Cabinet participation
because al-Maliki failed to respond to demands for
political reform issued five months ago.
He said the suspension was not tied to the decision
last week by the top Sunni political bloc to pull
its six ministers out of the 40-member Cabinet. |
former Iraqi Prime Minister and Head of the Iraqi
National List (INL) Ayad Allawi |
Lawmaker Hussam al-Azawi, also of the Iraqiya List,
said the boycott began with Monday's Cabinet
meeting.
"Our ministers did not attend, because our block has
several demands that have not been met. We demanded
broader political participation by all Iraqis to
achieve real national reconciliation ... and an end
to sectarian favoritism," al-Azawi said.
The boycott raises to 17 the number of government
ministers who have either suspended membership or
quit this year.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said the United States continues to
support the al-Maliki government, although he did
not give the kind of enthusiastic endorsement that
President Bush and his aides once did.
"There's a very healthy political debate that is
going on in Iraq, and that is good," McCormack said.
"What you want to have is an Iraqi government that
is working on behalf of the Iraqi people and that is
producing results for the Iraqi people. That is what
the Iraqi people expect, and it's going to be for
them to make the judgments about whether or not that
government is performing."
The Iraqiya List is represented in the government by
Justice Minister Hashim al-Shibli, a Sunni; Science
and Technology Minister Raid Fahmi, a Sunni; Human
Rights Minister Wijdan Michael, a Christian;
Communications Minster Mohammed Tawfiq, a Shiite,
and State Minister for Tribal Affairs Mohammed Abbas
al-Oraibi, a Shiite.
The largest Sunni Arab bloc, the Iraqi Accordance
Front, said Aug. 1 that it was quitting the
government, with six ministers submitting their
resignations.
Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Front, said
the decision to pull out of government was sealed by
what he called al-Maliki's failure to respond to a
set of demands, including the release of security
detainees not charged with specific crimes, the
disbanding of militias and the participation of all
groups represented in the government in dealing with
security issues.
Five Cabinet ministers loyal to radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also left the government in
April to protest al-Maliki's refusal to announce a
timetable for the pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Since the Accordance Front quit, President Jalal
Talabani has been trying to broker their return in a
bid to hold the government together. He met Sunday
with Iraq's two vice presidents, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a
Shiite, and Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni.
AP
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