Iraq’s prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday that the line-up for the country’s first permanent government of the post-Saddam Hussein era was almost ready, after months of tortuous negotiations.
“We will finalise the Cabinet today [Tuesday] or tomorrow [Wednesday] and will present the new government to the Parliament this week,” he told reporters.
Iraq’s rival political factions have been wrangling since the December election over the shape of a new national-unity government, which it is hoped will help quell raging sectarian violence and rein in the Sunni-led insurgency.
“This is a government of all Iraqis and not of one sect,” Al-Maliki said. “Iraqis have suffered enough under the Saddam Hussein regime and they now need a strong unity government.”
Al-Maliki said the cabinet was “90%” ready and the candidates for the heads of the five key ministries — interior, defence, oil, finance and foreign affairs — had been finalised.
“The candidates for the interior and defence ministries are independents and not from any major political party, nor do they have any links with any militias,” Al-Maliki said.
However, he did not name the candidates, saying “we will announce the entire Cabinet together.”.
Iraq’s interior ministry, led by Shi’ite Bayan Jabr Solagh, has been accused of operating death squads that have engaged in extra-judicial killings of Sunni Arabs.
Solagh himself is a member of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a hard-line Shi’ite party which operates a well-organised militia, the Badr Brigade.
Iraq’s numerous Shi’ite militias have been accused of killing Sunni Arabs in sectarian bloodshed that has killed hundreds of people since the bombing of a revered Shi’ite shrine in February.
Al-Maliki, of the Shi’ite Dawa Party, was selected last month after Sunni Arab and Kurdish groups opposed outgoing premier Ibrahim Jaafari staying in office.
“I will meet some more candidates for other ministries in these two days and I have the confidence to solve the remaining issues and go to the Parliament,” he said.
Al-Maliki had said he would form a government of national unity by May 10, although under the constitution, he has until May 21 to unveil his line-up.
The formation of the government is the latest stage in Iraq’s political transition since the ousting of Saddam in April 2003 by US-led forces.
The United States is hoping that a broad-based government will help curb the daily bloodshed and pave the way for the withdrawal of its 132 000 troops stationed in the country.
Al-Maliki said he was opening the doors for armed rebel groups to join the political process.
“If there are people who carried weapons to fight the political process but do not have blood of innocent Iraqis on their hands, I am ready to talk to them and ask them to surrender their weapons and invite them to join the political process.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s new ambassador to Iraq officially took up his post in Baghdad on Tuesday, the first from the Islamic republic since 1980.
Hassan Kazemi Qomi has served as charge d’affaires to Baghdad for the past two years, although the two countries agreed to raise their representation to ambassadorial level in September 2004. — AFP