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| Iraq |
| Khalizhad wants Iraqi leadership conference away from Baghdad |
| 2006-03-10 |
| U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad will try to persuade the country‘s main political players to take part in a conference, possibly outside Iraq, where they might get the long-stalled political process back on track, Time magazine said on Thursday. Creation of a government is necessary for U.S. plans to draw down its 130,000-strong force in Iraq, he told the magazine in an interview. Khalilzad told Time he would advocate a new initiative: lock the bickering officials up in a room outside of Baghdad and maybe outside of the country, and don‘t let them out until they have sorted out their differences. He told Time he would push the idea over the next few days so Iraqi leaders could arrive at a common political agenda to be administered by an all-party government. "I believe that if we get -- when we get -- the national-unity government, when we have ministries that are run by competent ministers, and as we get into the next phase of our Sunni outreach ... I see a set of circumstances, frankly, that would allow for a significant withdrawal of our forces," he told Time. Political wrangling has slowed the formation of a new government. Iraq‘s president on Thursday delayed the first session of the new parliament by a week to March 19, more than three months after the general election. Khalilzad said the main political hurdle was the deep division over who should be Iraq‘s next prime minister. The Shi‘ite alliance that won the largest block of seats in the December 15 general election has nominated Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is prime minister of the interim government. Kurdish, Sunni and secular parties have mounted a strong challenge, demanding Jaafari‘s nomination be withdrawn. They blame Jaafari for the interim government‘s failings, including its failure to act quickly to prevent the sectarian conflagration that followed a blast at a major Shi‘ite shrine in Samarra, Time said. He told the magazine that once the prime minister was decided and legislators sworn in, he would invite leaders of the main parties to a conference "perhaps here or somewhere else," to help speed up negotiations. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |