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Jalal Talabani: We'll never give up on
sovereign posts in new Iraqi govt
16.3.2008
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March 16, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq',--
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the Kurdistan
Coalition (KC) will never give up sovereign
positions in the new Iraqi government Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki was planning to form.
"Sovereign positions in the Iraqi government is our
right," Talabani, who is also the leader of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said during a
press conference in Salah al-Din resort after a
meeting with Iraqi Kurdistan Region President
Massoud Barzani on Saturday.
Fouad Maasoum, the leader of the KC bloc, had told
VOI that the talk on changing or replacing sovereign
ministerial portfolios was premature, revealing that
the KC was "sticking to the foreign affairs
portfolio," currently under incumbent Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
The Maliki government is composed of 37 ministries,
five of them are state ministries, distributed among
the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC), the
largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 83 out of
a total 275 seats, the KC, the second largest with
55 seats. |
Iraqi President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd |
The Sunni Iraqi
Accordance Front (IAF), which had 35 seats prior to
its withdrawal in August 2007 along with ministers
of the Sadrist bloc,www.ekurd.net
or Iraqis loyal to
Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, which has 30 seats,
and the former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi's Iraqi
National List (INL), which has 21 seats.
According to a cabinet statement last month, Maliki
sent a message to the presidential board and the
leaders of political blocs in which he set the basis
to be used in the formation of a new government.
"One of these principles is the avoidance of the
quota system and the selection of experienced
efficient technocrats as ministers, provided that
the number of ministries would be cut to 22," the
cabinet statement read.
The Iraqi president arrived in Erbil, the capital of
the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, to attend the
three-day Arab Parliamentary Union (APU) conference.
VOI
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