Iraq Shi’ites, Kurds agree to open govt to Sunnis

By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Leaders of the Shi’ite and Kurdish
blocs that emerged triumphant in this month’s Iraqi election
agreed on Tuesday to push ahead with efforts to bring Sunni and
other parties into a grand coalition government.

The visit of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim of the Shi’ite Islamist
Alliance to the Kurdish capital Arbil opened a series of
planned meetings among rival factions intended to ease friction
over election results which Sunni and secular parties say have
been rigged and to begin building a consensus administration.

“We agreed on the principle of forming a government
involving all the parties with a wide popular base,” Kurdish
regional leader Masoud Barzani told a joint news conference
after talks with Hakim, the dominant force in the Alliance.

Hakim, whose bloc has run the interim government for the
past year in coalition with the Kurds, was due to meet the
other main Kurdish leader, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, on
Wednesday, launching a series of bilateral meetings that will
include Sunni Arab and secular leaders disappointed in the
vote.

In Baghdad, several thousand supporters of secular former
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi marched in the latest street protest
against the results of the December 15 ballot. They want a
rerun of a vote that handed close to a majority to the
Alliance, whose armed supporters they accuse of forming
Islamist death squads.

Privately, however, many disappointed leaders acknowledge
the results will stand and say they will negotiate a coalition.

After meeting Hakim, Talabani will see, among others,
Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, and Sunnis Adnan al-Dulaimi and
Tariq al-Hashemi of the Accordance Front, Planning Minister
Barham Saleh, a senior official in Talabani’s party, said.

PROCESS STARTING

“The Kurdish Alliance is making contacts with the political
blocs to prepare for a national unity government,” Saleh said.

“These are preliminary and bilateral discussions between
the Kurds and other groups … There are expectation that at
the beginning of next year there will be bigger meetings.”

Sounding a cautious note ahead of negotiations that no one
expects to produce a government for many weeks, Jawad al-Maliki
of SCIRI ally Dawa, said: “(Hakim) is not there to negotiate
about forming a government … They might, in general, talk
about the new government and the results of the election.

“The Kurdish bloc will remain our strongest ally.”

A provisional estimation by Reuters, based on preliminary
results, puts the Alliance on about 130 seats in the 275-seat
assembly, just short of its current slim majority, with the
Kurds on 52, the main Sunni group the Accordance Front on 41
and Allawi’s list on 24, well short of his present 40 seats.
The secular Sunni National Dialogue Front would have nine
seats.

There is general agreement, supported with emphasis by the
United States, that a “national unity” government is required
to address sharply opposing interests among the armed
communities.

In a reminder of the grievances and tensions underlying the
process, police in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala rushed to
announce the discovery of some 150 bodies in a mass grave
dating from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led oppression of Shi’ites
in 1991.

But, after some confusion, officials said the number found
was 31.

HELICOPTER CRASH

At least three people were killed and six wounded in
attacks in the northern oil city of Kirkuk and the town of
Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said four Americans died on Monday,
including two pilots killed when two Apache helicopters
collided midair. One helicopter crashed in western Baghdad, the
other landed at a base north of the capital.

The military said there was no hostile fire, but the
incident was being investigated.

Police in the capital found three corpses bearing marks of
torture and bullet wounds, while in Sunni Arab bastion of
Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, gunmen abducted
the head of a pharmaceuticals factory and six of his
bodyguards.

Quelling such violence will be the main task of the
incoming government, expected to emerge over the coming weeks
or possibly months once the election results are finalised.

Though much of the recent bloodshed appears to be the work
of al Qaeda-linked Sunni Islamists dedicated to wrecking the
U.S.-backed political process, U.S. and Iraqi officials are
keen to stem any resurgence in violence by other Sunni Arab
groups, which observed an informal truce in the hope of
establishing a strong voice for their minority in the new
parliament.

Some Sunni politicians have warned that if their demand for
a rerun was not met, the rebel groups would lose patience and
step up their attacks. Behind the scenes, however, politicians
have continued to talk to rivals, and appear to be jockeying
for power more than trying to derail the new political system.

U.S. diplomats are also closely involved in trying to find
a stable, consensus government that could stabilize the country
and allow Washington to start withdrawing its 160,000 troops.

Poland has decided to keep its troops there until the end
of 2006, longer than earlier planned, reaffirming its backing
for the United States despite growing opposition at home.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Aseel Kami, Mussab
al-Khairalla, Gideon Long and Alastair Macdonald)