Sunni Arabs, prime minister to hold talks with Kurds, possibly on new coalition government

Jan 1, 2006 AP- A delegation from Iraq's main Sunni Arab group planned to meet with senior Kurdish officials Sunday as political factions ponder the options for forming a coalition government.
   Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite Arab, also was traveling to Iraq's Kurdish region to meet with regional President Massoud Barzani, the head of one of the two main Kurdish political parties.

It was unclear if a three-way meeting between al-Jaafari, Sunnis and Kurds would take place.

The visit by a Sunni Arab delegation to Iraq's northern Kurdish region would be the first such trip since the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, whose results have been contested by Sunni groups and secular parties.

The discussions come at a critical time for Iraq, with the United States placing high hopes on forming a broad-based coalition government that will provide the fledgling democracy with the stability and security it needs to allow American troops to begin returning home.

Sunni Arabs were predominant in Saddam Hussein's regime and form the backbone of the insurgency, and the Bush administration hopes to pull them away from the rebellion by drawing them into the country's politics and govenrment.

The delegation from the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front was to be led by two of the group's three leaders: Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the General Conference of the Iraqi People, and Tarek al-Hashimi, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Spokesman Thafir Al-Ani claimed the Sunni representatives would not talk about forming a coalition government until election complaints are cleared up.

"The main axis of our agenda is to discuss how to find a fair solution for the election results, which we believe were stained with fraud," al-Ani told The Associated Press. "We will not talk about forming the new government because there is an obstacle and it has to be removed"

Preliminary results have given the governing religious-oriented Shiite United Iraqi Alliance a big lead, but one unlikely to allow it to govern without forming a coalition with other groups.

Final results are expected as early as this week, and the Shiite religious bloc may win about 130 seats -- short of the 184 seats needed to avoid a coalition with other parties.

The Kurds could get about 55, the main Sunni Arab groups about 50 and the secular bloc headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite, about 25.

A representative of the secular group said it had not been invited to the Sunday talks.

The Kurdish north in recent days has seen a flurry of postelection bargaining between the Kurds and the governing United Iraqi Alliance.

Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups contend widespread fraud and intimidation tainted the elections and have demanded a rerun of the poll in some provinces, including Baghdad, which elects 59 of parliament's 275 seats.