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.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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