Iraqi Sunni and Kurdish leaders yesterday emphatically rejected Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari staying on in the next government, possibly sealing the embattled Shiite's political fate.
The clear no to Jaafari -- blamed for failing to curb sectarian bloodshed since the bombing of the Shiite Samarra shrine in February -- came amid a wave of violence that left more than 100 Shiites dead last week.
Jaafari's Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, the largest parliamentary bloc, had made yet another attempt on Sunday to save Jaafari's candidature by setting up a three-member committee to talk to the Kurds and the Sunnis.
The committee was mandated to talk to the two minority groups without whose support a national unity government -- as desired by the US -- is virtually impossible to be formed in Iraq.
"We have sent a letter to our Shiite brothers explaining that our position remains the same -- that of rejecting Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's candidacy," Thafer al-Ani, spokesman of the Sunni-led National Concord Front told Agence France Presse.
The National Concord Front has 44 seats in the 275-member Iraqi parliament.
Late on Sunday Iraq's Kurdish group also rejected the candidature of Jaafari.
The Alliance was expected to meet yesterday to make a final decision on Jaafari.
"After we formally hear from the other lists, like the Iraqiya, which will also refuse to work with Jaafari, then we will today [yesterday] sit down in the Alliance and decide," said a senior Alliance source.
Although the Alliance has the biggest bloc in parliament, it falls just short of an overall majority so Shiite leaders need the Kurds and Sunnis to form a unity government.
They accuse Jaafari of monopolizing power and failing to lead the country out of its many woes, and even his partners in the Alliance oppose him, but the Dawa party leader has refused to step down.
Jaafari has been facing opposition even from within the Alliance, with numerous Shiite MPs demanding his withdrawal, including Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi, who lost out narrowly to Jaafari in the nomination race.
As the yawning political vacuum created over Jaafari continues nearly four months after the elections, Iraq remains engulfed in a deadly wave of sectarian violence. On Sunday 12 people were killed in a series of bombings and shootings.
The US and UK were watching yesterday's political developments very closely after repeatedly urging Iraqi leaders to bury their differences and fill a political vacuum that is fueling violence.
A planned meeting between the US and Iran on stability in Iraq had raised hopes that the neighboring power could use its influence over fellow Shiites leading the Iraqi government and help push the political process forward.
But US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who will represent Washington in the talks, said on Sunday the meeting will not be held until after an Iraqi government was formed.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hit a nerve by declaring that Iraq was in a state of civil war.
Mubarak said in an interview with Dubai-based al-Arabiyah television on Saturday that "there is effectively a civil war underway now."
The Shiite-led Iraqi government, eager to project an image of unity, strongly criticized Mubarak, after he said Shiites were more loyal to Iran than their own Arab countries.
"The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and has astonished and dismayed the Iraqi government," Jaafari said.
President Jalal Talabani said the "accusations against our Shiite brothers are baseless and we have asked our foreign minister to talk to Egypt about this."
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
RSS