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Shiites, Kurds report progress on Cabinet

Shiite and Kurdish officials reported progress in resolving disagreements over territorial issues and Cabinet posts, but said they may need another week to put together Iraq's coalition government.

In violence around Iraq on Thursday, six US soldiers were wounded in the northern city of Mosul when a convoy was attacked by a car bomber, Captain Patricia Brewer said in Baghdad. According to a witness, Faisal Qasim, the bombing was carried out by a suicide bomber who slammed his car into a convoy of seven armored vehicles, striking the fourth.

Also late Thursday, gunmen shot dead Abdul Rahman al-Samarie, the Sunni Imam of the Thaat Al-Nitaqeen mosque in eastern Baghdad, Colonel Ahmed Aboud, chief of the New Baghdad police station, said yesterday. Al-Samarie was walking outside the mosque when gunmen in a vehicle opened fire.

Nearly two months after they braved death to vote, many Iraqis are growing frustrated over the slow pace of the talks to form a new government.

"These negotiations included many things, not just the Kurdish issues, but also regarding the shape of the Iraqi government," said interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd.

The latest setback came after Kurdish politicians reportedly insisted on amending a deal they struck last week with the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance. They agreed, however, to go ahead with a ceremony on Wednesday swearing in the 275-seat National Assembly elected on Jan. 30.

But the deputies failed to set a date to reconvene, did not elect a speaker or nominate a president and vice president -- all of which they had hoped to do their first day. Instead, the session was spent reveling in the seating of Iraq's first democratic legislature in 50 years.

The failure to appoint top officials stemmed from the inability of Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs to agree on a speaker for the new legislature, disagreement over the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk and renewed haggling over Cabinet posts.

The interim constitution sets no time limit for forming a government after the National Assembly convenes.

"We will be seeing a government formed next week," said Haitham al-Husseiny, who heads the office of Shiite alliance leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, but he would not give a firm date.

Azad Jundiyan, a spokesman for Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said he thought the government will be named after Kurds celebrate Norwuz, their six-day new year holiday that ends March 26.

"This procrastination in forming the government frustrates us and does not make us optimistic," said Qaiss Mosa of Baghdad, echoing frustration widely heard among people on the street.

"Iraqis were hoping to see a national government," he said.

Most of the disagreement focused on whether to allow the Kurds' peshmerga militia to remain in Kurdistan as part of the Iraqi police and army, along with setting a timetable for Kurds to assume control of Kirkuk and permit the speedy return of nearly 100,000 refugees -- conditions included in an interim law that serves as a preliminary constitution.

"Negotiations were very constructive and the differences in the interim law and peshmerga were solved.

"We have agreed that some peshmerga will join the Kurdistan police and some will be part of the Iraqi army, with the same equipment and salaries and take orders from the defense ministry in Baghdad," Jundiyan said.
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