KurdistanObserver.com

Zebari: All The Principles Have Been Agreed Upon By All The Parties.

Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish powerbrokers woo Allawi
Mar 19, 2005
By Ned Parker

BAGHDAD-AFP-Shiite and Kurdish leaders said on Friday that Iraq's next government could be formed within a week as they courted the Sunni minority and outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi to join a ruling coalition.

"We have set next Thursday as a preliminary date for the national assembly to reconvene," Jawad al-Maliky, a member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) told Agence France-Presse.

"We have agreed on the principles of the government, but we do not have yet a final deal on the make-up of the government, we hope that will happen before the assembly meets."

Outgoing foreign minister and Kurdish negotiator Hoshyar Zebari said no date had been fixed for the second parliament session, but one of his aides, Fawzi Hariri suggested: "Within a week to 10 days the whole thing should be done."

The new parliament held its first historic session last Wednesday, one month-and-a-half after the milestone parliament elections, but without managing to form a national unity government.

Zebari said the Kurdistan Alliance, with 77 seats in the 275-member parliament, had finally agreed on the terms of forming a coalition government with the UIA, the biggest victor with 146 parliament seats.

"All the principles have been agreed upon by all the parties."

Zebari's faction of the Kurdish list, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), had pressed last-minute demands on the Shiites over the status of the northern, ethnically-divided, oil city of Kirkuk and their peshmerga militia.

The deadlock between the Kurds and the Shiite alliance contributed to the failure on Wednesday for MPs to choose an executive body or to schedule a second session.

The sides have drafted a written agreement, which is meant to assure the Kurds that their virtual autonomy in the north after years of suffering under detained dictator Saddam Hussein will be protected.

It also commits the next government to taking concrete steps under Iraq's interim constitution to solving the problem of Kirkuk, from where Saddam expelled tens of thousands of Kurds.

"The issue of Kirkuk has been addressed satisfactorily based on procedures and measures mapped out in the transitional law," Zebari said.

"There are a number of steps that need to be taken and activated. These have been agreed upon."

Zebari said the new government is committed to resettling displaced Kurds in the city and arbitrating property disputes between the Kurds and the Arabs who were brought into Kirkuk to replace them.

But the sides will ink the written agreement, formalizing their alliance, only after wooing other parties to sign as well, Zebari's aide Hariri said.

Meanwhile, the Kurds and Shiites have started courting the secular ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi and leading politicians like outgoing president Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar from Iraq's Sunni minority.

The UIA and Kurdistan Alliance met Allawi's Iraqi list on Thursday and presented it with the agreement between the sides.

"We asked the Iraqi list to give us their vision and idea on whether they will participate in the new government or not. They have given us a positive response," Zebari said, adding that their participation now hinged on cabinet posts offered to them.

A senior member of Allawi's list, Imad Shibib, confirmed the talks were progressing.

"Until now, we are in negotiations with both lists. We have not come to a decision," he told Agence France-Presse.

Talks on Friday between the UIA and Kurds were concentrating on awarding government posts among the volatile mix of ethnic and religious groups.

"We're now reaching out to the other lists. This is why it is taking so long," Zebari said.

"The whole idea of a national unity government is we need the engagement and involvement of all parties."

One stumbling-block is finding ministerial posts for the Sunni Arabs, who had been the ruling elite for most of Iraq's modern history until the fall of Saddam two years ago.

The embittered minority is seen as fueling the insurgency and widely boycotted the elections.

Details on the shape of the government were emerging.

Iraq's presidency will likely go to Kurdish chief Jalal al-Talabani and the two deputies will probably be a Shiite and a Sunni Muslim Arab.

In fresh violence north of the capital, a soldier was kidnapped in Tuz, police said, while a bomb wounded three people near the refinery town of Baiji.

The body of a businessman working with the Americans was found on Friday near Dujail, north of Baghdad, police said. The man had been shot.

To the south, near Nassiriyah, attackers on Thursday shot dead a truck driver who was carrying merchandise for the ministry of trade, police said.

On an Internet website, the Al-Qaeda linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna claimed it had killed a Christian general in the Iraqi police force earlier this week in Kirkuk.