A new Iraqi government may not be in place by the time the new parliament meets on Wednesday because the two main political blocs – the Shia and the Kurds – cannot agree on the programme and make-up of the country’s first elected national administration in decades.
The two camps were due to publicly formalise a deal on Monday. But six weeks after January’s historic vote, and with the insurgency still raging in the Sunni triangle, leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, the main Shia group, and the Kurdistan Democratic Alliance, which came second in the elections, admit that a final agreement remains elusive.
”We have agreed on the principles of a government of national unity, but remain divided over details,” Iraq’s interim Vice-President, Dr Rowsch Nuri Schways, a Kurd, said on Sunday.
The delay in forming the government has caused frustration and anxiety among many ordinary Iraqis while mainly Sunni Arab insurgents stage ever bloodier attacks in their campaign to derail the political process.
”The discussions with the Shia alliance about the government will probably continue into the new Parliament,” Schways said.
He spoke after Kurdish party leaders met in the northern resort town of Salaheddin to consider a three-page draft agreement, drawn up with their Shia counterparts in Baghdad, that would act as a blueprint for a coalition government.
”The Kurds want everything written out and signed, while the Shia appear to be in favour of keeping it all a bit more vague,” said Dr Mahmoud Osman, a senior Kurdish politician, who is close to the talks. ”But there doesn’t seem to be any major ideological clash and both sides say the talks have been conducted in a professional and respectful atmosphere.”
Issues still to be resolved between the two blocs include the status of the disputed city of Kirkuk and the portion of national oil revenues to be allocated to the Kurdish federal region. The future of the Kurds’ peshmerga fighters, which many Iraqi Arabs want to see disbanded or turned into official Iraqi forces, is also being discussed.
There is also debate about the need for guarantees that hardline elements within the Shia alliance won’t try to push through an Islamist agenda, as well as disagreements over the allocation of the major Cabinet seats. The Kurds want two but the UIA, the biggest party, say they should have only one.
The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, said a Kurdish delegation would return to Baghdad ”to continue discussions with both the Shia alliance as well as Sunni Arabs and other parties, such as [interim prime minister] Ayad Allawi’s, to make a government as inclusive as possible.”
He said: ”The only people we will not be talking to are terrorists.”
Kurds, who have emerged as kingmakers, expect to see Jalal Talabani, the veteran leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, become president.
In return they will back the prime minsterial candidate from the Shia list, currently Ibrahim Jafferi, a conservative Islamist and member of the Dawa party. – Guardian Unlimited Â