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.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS