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| Iraq |
| Iraq's new political alliance, but no Sunnis |
| 2007-08-17 |
| Iraq's president and prime minister announced a new political alliance between mainstream Shiite and Kurdish parties on Thursday but, crucially, no Sunni leaders have yet signed up. "Signing this agreement will help solve many problems in the present crisis and encourage the others to join us," President Jalal Talabani said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Maliki's government has been paralysed by the decision of the main Sunni political bloc to withdraw its ministers from the government during a power sharing dispute with the premier's Shiite supporters. The deal formalised an alliance between Maliki's Dawa Party, Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi's Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Massud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK). But Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and his National Concord Front, the main Sunni faction, boycotted talks that led to the bloc's creation, and the government remains bitterly split on sectarian and ethnic lines. "This is a patriotic agreement which was not struck in the interests of the signing parties but in those of the Iraqi people and the government of national unity and the march of democracy in Iraq," Talabani said. Some additional details in the FT here. |
| Posted by:Fred |