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Iraq parliament meets, no government deal yet
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Iraq parliament meets, no government deal yet
Three months after it was elected, Iraq?s parliament finally sat yesterday but the session was largely devoid of practical meaning as talks on forming a national unity government are still deadlocked.
?Nothing will happen. There?ll be no breakthrough, nothing. It is just something we have to get off our backs,? one senior parliamentarian told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
?We will meet in parliament and then will go and sit at the negotiating table (about forming the coalition government) and yell at each other,? said the parliamentarian, noting the first sitting was largely dictated by a constitutional deadline. Baghdad?s normally clogged streets were empty of cars as authorities imposed a vehicle ban to prevent violence.
The opening of the first full-term parliament since the US-led invasion three years ago should be the culmination of a US-sponsored political process that began with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but Shi?ites, Sunnis and Kurds cannot agree on a coalition that Washington sees as a way to avert civil war.
As a result, to satisfy a constitutional rule that the speaker be appointed at the first session, yesterday?s meeting will not formally adjourn, leaving the ?first? sitting open for however many days it takes to reach agreement. Iraq?s Shi?ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said yesterday he was willing to withdraw his nomination for a second term if asked to step aside.
?If my people ask me to step aside I will do this,? Jaafari, who is under increasing pressure from Sunnis, Kurds and secular leaders to step aside told a news conference after the first session was convened.
Insurgents</B>
Although the new constitution, ratified last year, sets a 30-day timetable for appointing a prime minister, there is a dispute over whether to apply it this first time around.
Sunnis, from whom insurgents gather their support, and Kurds know Jaafari does not have the full support of his fellow Shi?ite Muslims ? the majority community in Iraq ? and are gunning for him.
Parliamentary officials said some speeches on the first day may touch on the sectarian killings that have spread since the bombing of a Shi?ite shrine three weeks ago and which many fear are pushing Iraq irreversibly toward civil war.
The session was due to open at 11 a.m. in the makeshift Convention Centre premises of its predecessor in the fortified, so-called Green Zone in Baghdad.
A senior parliamentary official from the ruling Shi?ite Alliance bloc, Rida Jawad al-Takki, said outgoing speaker Hajim al-Hassani would summarise the achievements of last year?s interim legislature, which drew up a constitution still fiercely opposed by most leaders of Iraq?s Sunni minority.
After that, the new parliament would be called to order by Adnan Pachachi, the oldest member and a patrician former foreign minister from the days before Saddam Hussein in the 1960s. Each of the 275 members would swear an oath, Takki said. Pachachi would also end the session, telling members it would technically remain open.
Failures</B>
With Washington anxious for a deal that it hopes can bring stability and let it bring its 133,000 troops home, US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been shepherding party leaders into intensive talks this week on forming a government.
?They are going very slowly but they are useful and I think we will reach some kind of deal,? said one senior politician involved in the meetings. ?But it?s not clear when.?
One source in the Shi?ite Alliance said one sticking point was the bloc?s own divisions over Jaafari, blamed by some for failures in security and the economy over the past year. He won an internal Alliance ballot by a single vote last month.
?Since we ourselves are stuck over Jaafari we are still at square one,? the source said. ?The problem is that the Alliance is divided ... This has weakened the Alliance position.?
A senior source in one of the other blocs said: ?We will never give up on getting rid of Jaafari. They cannot convince us to accept someone that they themselves are not convinced about.?
On Wednesday, Iraqi police accused US troops of killing five children in a raid on an al Qaeda suspect as Saddam used his televised trial to call on people to ?resist the invaders?.
The judge promptly cut off the cameras and barred the press. After a new wave of sectarian killings in Baghdad this week, the Shi?ite religious leadership issued an alarm signal when a senior source told Reuters top clerics? appeals for calm were going unheeded and militias were at risk of losing control.
Police and witnesses said 11 members of a family were killed in the US raid, which occurred in Ishaqi, a town in Saddam?s home province north of Baghdad. The US military said two women and a child died as troops arrested the al Qaeda militant.
Television footage showed the bodies of five children, two men and four women in the Tikrit morgue. One infant had a gaping head wound. All the children seemed younger than school age.
?It?s a clear and perfect crime,? said a senior policeman, declining to be named
<B>Mariam KAROUNY</B>
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