KurdistanObserver.com

Kurds Cool On Jaafari's Bid to Stay On As Iraqi PM

By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Ibrahim al-Jaafari will struggle to get Kurdish backing for his bid to stay on as Iraqi prime minister despite a two-day visit to drum up support for his campaign, a senior Kurdish official said on Tuesday.

The official said Jaafari's visit, which ended on Monday, failed to improve his strained relations with Kurds, who accuse him of monopolising power and failing to honour the deals he made to win Kurdish support the first time he took office.

"The visit was designed to melt the ice between us," said the official from the Kurdish Alliance, the second biggest bloc in the current Iraqi parliament.

"But it will be very difficult for Jaafari to get Kurdish support," said the official, who declined to be named. "We have strong reservations about him and the way he ran the government.

"We also have reservations about the way he deals with Kurdish demands."

Jaafari is head of one of the two main parties in the Shi'ite Islamist coalition that dominated the Dec. 15 election and is set to be the biggest bloc in the new parliament.

On paper, the bloc has the constitutional right to nominate a prime minister. Alliance sources have said their nomination will either be Jaafari or Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Whoever gets the nomination will still have to win parliamentary approval and, as the Shi'ite alliance is likely to fall short of an overall majority, will have to find support from other parties.

Without Kurdish backing, Jaafari is vulnerable to mounting support within his own Shi'ite Alliance coalition for Mahdi.

Ultimately, the choice of prime minister will be part of an elaborate package deal worked out by four or more blocs now engaged in preliminary negotiations on a grand coalition.

The official said Kurdish leaders are unimpressed by Jaafari's record in government over the past eight months.

In particular, they do not believe Jaafari, a Shi'ite Islamist from southern Iraq, has done enough to support their claim to the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds want as the future capital of an autonomous region.

Jaafari wound up his visit to Kurdistan on Monday by meeting Iraq's Kurdish president Jalal Talabani.

At a news conference afterwards, Talabani said the two men had buried their differences and that he had no objection to Jaafari heading the new government.

Hazim al-Naimi, political analyst at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, described Jaafari's trip as "a personal visit", designed to woo the Kurds.

"The first idea of the meeting was to make up with Talabani because there was tension between them," he said, adding that he doubted the Kurds would back Jaafari over Mahdi.

He also said the Kurds, stung by what they see as Jaafari's failure to keep his promises with regard to their demands, would seek watertight guarantees from the leaders of the future government -- particularly on Kirkuk.

"The Kurds want all agreements written and signed this time -- especially on settling the status of Kirkuk," he said.

At present, Kirkuk, which has a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, sits to the southwest of Iraq's three Kurdish provinces -- Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaimani. The Kurds, who control the local government, want the boundaries redrawn to bring the city into their autonomous territory.

The Kurds say Jaafari's official spokesman Laith Kubba is unsympathetic to them and have asked Jaafari to sack him, a request which has been refused, while in October, Talabani's own spokesman said Jaafari should be sacked.