Iraq's fractious political groups are moving ahead to a shape a national unity government, progress that should help stop the carnage seen around Iraq over the past several days, the country's prime minister and other leaders said on Saturday.
Iraq's Kurdish president predicted that a new government could be formed within weeks and said the country's main political groups had agreed in principle on a coalition of national unity.
Jalal Talabani made the comments after meeting with visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who said Iraqis remain optimistic about their future despite suffering through a violent week that saw nearly 200 people killed in two days, including 11 US troops.
In an effort to help draw Sunni Arabs into the country's political process as a way to dampen insurgent activity, US officials for months have been communicating directly or through channels with Sunni Arabs once or currently involved in the insurgency. A Western diplomat on Saturday said there had been a recent "uptick" in those contacts.
Those insurgents "sense that the political process does protect the Sunni community's interest," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
There was also an "uptick" in communication after last year's parliamentary elections, he said.
A US official said the coalition does not talk to foreign terrorists or those who want to bring back the regime of Saddam Hussein, but said it was important to isolate extremists from the broader Sunni Arab community. He also spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Meeting with Straw in Baghdad, Talabani said Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political groups had agreed in principle on a national unity government that could be formed within a few weeks. Western diplomats in Baghdad have speculated that a government could be in place by the second half of next month.
"In principle we are agreed to have a national unity government. Everyone is expecting to have it as soon as possible, but you know the devil is in the details," Talabani said.
He said it should be easier to form a new government than it was after the Jan. 30 elections last year, when it took nearly three months.
"We are expecting within weeks, God willing, we will be able to form the government.," he said.
Talabani and other Kurdish leaders met over the New Year's holiday with Sunni Arab leaders from the Iraqi Accordance Front, with head of the governing Shiite United Iraqi Alliance and Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. The meetings in northern Irbil helped shape agreement on the general outlines of a broad-based coalition government.
Al-Jaafari, a member of the Shiite Alliance and head of the Dawa party, said in a separate meeting with Straw that the Shiite "alliance and the coalition of Kurdistan and the other tickets, fortunately, are keen to make a national unity government. That common feeling will make the process easier."
Earlier, Straw said the situation in Iraq remained violent but its politicians were optimistic.
"I was trying to avoid any kind of pretense about the situation here in Iraq," Straw told BBC radio. "It is very difficult. People are being killed by terrorism."
Violence was greatly diminished on Saturday. Four people were killed in attacks around the country, and police found the bodies of three females -- blindfolded and handcuffed -- who had apparently been shot to death, officials said.
Almost 200 people were killed in attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, and thousands of angry Shiites demonstrated against the wave of bloodshed in Baghdad's Sadr City slum on Friday.
The protesters also denounced what they claimed was US backing for Sunni Arab politicians.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
RSS