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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS