Iraq Parliament Convenes in Deadlock

16/03/2006| IslamWeb

The first session of Iraq's new parliament has begun with parties still deadlocked over the next government.

The session opened at 0800 GMT on Thursday in the makeshift Convention Centre premises in the fortified, so-called Green Zone in Baghdad.

Three months after it was elected, Iraq's parliament finally sat but the session was said to be largely devoid of practical meaning as talks on forming a national unity government are still deadlocked.

Before the meeting, one parliamentarian said: "Nothing will happen today. There'll be no breakthrough, nothing. It is just something we have to get off our backs.

"We will meet in parliament and then will go and sit at the negotiating table [about forming the coalition government] and yell at each other."

Constitutional rule

He noted that the first sitting was largely dictated by a constitutional deadline.

To satisfy a constitutional rule that the speaker be appointed at the first session, Thursday's meeting will not formally adjourn, leaving the "first" sitting open for however many days it takes to reach agreement.

One sticking point was the divisions over Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, who is blamed by some for failures in security and the economy over the past year.

Al-Jaafari insisted again on Wednesday that he would not give up his nomination for a second term and that another month should be enough to get a deal.

There was little sign of progress after a second full day of meetings on Wednesday among leaders of the major political blocs.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, brokered the sessions, designed to speed agreement on the next government's shape.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish politician who was in Wednesday's session, said: "I expect that there still will be difficulties over choosing the prime minister."

Although the new constitution, ratified last year, sets a 30-day timetable for appointing a prime minister, there is a dispute over whether to apply it.

Khalilzad has been pressing political leaders to reach agreement on a national unity government, under which the country's majority Shia Muslims would share Cabinet posts equitably with minority Sunnis and Kurds.

PHOTO CAPTION

(L to R) Arab Sunni politicians Tareq al-Hashimi, Adnan al-Pachachi, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Shiite politician Hussein Shaeristani attend a joint press conference following a meeting of Iraqi leaders in Baghdad. (AFP)