Iraqi leaders on Tuesday stepped up efforts to persuade Sunni Muslims to return into the political process as the final vote count from the country’s historic election got under way.
Iraq reopened its frontiers and Baghdad airport as it eased a security clampdown imposed for the first free election in the country in more than 50 years.
There has been no major attack since Sunday’s vote. But al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi vowed to pursue his ”holy war” against the Iraqi government, and Iraqi and United States leaders are resisting pressure to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.
Interim President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab, said all parties — except those tainted by the deadly insurgency that has gripped Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s overthrow in April 2003 — should take part in negotiations after the election.
”We must all become involved in a dialogue and reconciliation … with everyone. All those who were not involved in violence must be part of the political process,” Yawar told a press conference.
”There were no winners or losers” in the election, he said, calling it ”a victory for Iraq”.
The election is likely to see Shi’ites take power in Iraq for the first time in history after decades of oppression under Saddam’s Sunni regime.
The final count of ballots started amid stringent security in Baghdad, although no announcement of the final result is expected for at least a week.
But party officials said negotiations between rival parties over the make-up of the new government have already started.
The president called on the Iraqi Islamic Party, a mainstream Sunni religious faction that ordered supporters to boycott the poll, to join the drawing up of a new Constitution.
Yawar also predicted that a member of the Shi’ite majority community will have the key post of prime minister, with a Sunni president and a Kurdish head of the National Assembly.
A senior Shi’ite leader, Vice-President Ibrahim Jaafari, has already indicated a similar distribution of the posts. Yawar insisted, however, that the arrangement should not become permanent, saying it would be ”shameful”.
The president’s call to Sunni groups reinforced the message of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who on Monday urged Iraqis to unite after the election.
”All Iraqis should work together to build the future of our nation — whether you voted or not,” said Allawi, who also vowed to include the Sunnis in the next phase of the political transition.
Election seen as illegitimate
Although turnout was higher than expected, there was still a widespread rejection in Sunni-populated regions following the boycott calls and bomb attacks during the campaign.
Iraq’s most important Sunni religious organisation said it still regards the election as illegitimate.
The Committee of Muslim Scholars, which had urged followers to boycott the poll, said it had been a ”bogus” election organised to suit the US.
Despite the absence of major attacks after the election, Zarqawi’s extremist group vowed to maintain his holy war, in a statement on an Islamist website.
Fighters from his group ”will press on with their jihad until the banner of Islam flies over Iraq”, according to the statement, which could not be authenticated.
At least 38 people were killed on election day and the authorities said several foreign fighters were detained but the scale of the violence was much less than feared.
No timetable for withdrawal
The election was widely hailed around the world as a success.
But Yawar and US leaders rejected calls to lay out a timetable for withdrawing the roughly 150 000 US troops now in Iraq.
It would be ”complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power”, Yawar told a press conference.
But he added: ”By the end of the year, I believe we could see the beginning of a reduction in foreign troops.”
General Abdel Hamid Zibari Babaqer, head of the Iraqi army, said that US forces might be able to withdraw from cities by the end of the year but Iraqi forces could not cope alone now.
In Washington, a White House spokesperson said: ”We are committed to accelerating the process for training and equipping Iraqi security forces and making sure that they’re ready to defend the country.”
But he added: ”There’s still much work to do.”
US President George Bush, who ordered the invasion to topple Saddam, discussed Iraq’s future with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as leading critics of the war, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Air-crash probe stepped up
Britain, meanwhile, stepped up the investigation of the crash on Sunday of a Royal Air Force Hercules transport plane that killed 10 servicemen.
”There are some indications of some ground fire but nobody is in a position to confirm” the cause, a senior defence official said.
Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda linked extremist group, posted a statement on an Islamist website claiming it downed the plane north-west of Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera television also aired a video purporting to show the downing of the plane, saying the footage was filmed by the ”Islamic National Resistance in Iraq”. — Sapa-AFP