Iraqi Sunnis and Shi’ites pursue coalition talks

By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Shi’ite and Sunni Arab leaders have
opened talks on forming a new Iraqi government but full
negotiations will start only after the Shi’ites choose their
candidate for prime minister, officials said on Wednesday.

Among demands from the minority Sunnis, taking full part in
parliament for the first time after boycotting it last year,
was to take the job of president, a bid that sets up a clash
with the third main group, the Kurds, who currently hold the
post.

Though Sunni leaders are in discussions, anger at alleged
vote fraud on December 15 is still strong among their
supporters and a definitive decision on whether finally to join
a new coalition cabinet may be taken only next week, one Sunni
official said.

Bahaa al-Araji from the Shi’ite Alliance, which has a near
majority in the parliament elected last month, said a committee
formed to hold two-way talks with Sunni leaders met officials
from the Iraqi Accordance Front on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A separate Alliance committee will negotiate with the
Kurdish bloc but had not met yet and in any case all-out
bargaining on dividing up posts had yet to start, Araji said.

“We have been meeting with the Accordance Front,” he told
Reuters. “We have not discussed any details. We are still
talking about things in general.”

Hussein al-Falluji from the Accordance Front, the biggest
of two main Sunni Arab blocs, said: “We are having what you
could call a political chat about nothing too serious.”

The Shi’ites’ Araji added: “When we choose our candidate
for prime minister by the end of the week then more serious and
intensive talks will begin.”

The Alliance is divided between candidates from its two
main constituent parties — current Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari and Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi — to be
premier. As the biggest group in parliament, the choice is its
to make. Other names are in the ring but party leaders dismiss
their chances.

SUNNI PRESIDENT?

Falluji confirmed his group was pushing to have one of its
number as president of Iraq, where the Sunni minority dominated
politics since long before Saddam Hussein.

“We are thinking about this job. We would like to have it,”
he told Reuters, but added that it was a negotiable objective:
“It is not a red line for us.”

With such reserve to be expected at the outset of long and
complex negotiations involving the Kurds and other smaller
groups as well as U.S. diplomats, Araji said Shi’ite leaders
could be open to the idea of a Sunni president.

“They said that they want the presidency. In principle, we
do not object to that and might stand by them and support them
in that demand,” he said.

The Kurds want their co-leader, President Jalal Talabani,
to stay on in the post he took on an interim basis a year ago.

With many Sunni voters disenchanted by their first foray
into parliamentary politics, disbelieving assurances the
election was not rigged against them, Sunni leaders appear to
be under pressure to show clear results from the engagement in
the U.S.-backed process.

Sunni Arab tribal leaders, some of whose followers have
taken up arms against the U.S. occupation and the Shi’ite- and
Kurdish-led interim government, met Accordance Front officials
on Tuesday to discuss whether definitely to join a coalition
cabinet, a Sunni political leader said on Wednesday.

“Some said ‘Yes you should take part to change things from
within’ and others said ‘No’ because of what happened with the
results,” the official said, adding that a final decision would
be taken next week.

U.S. diplomats involved in the process are pressing for an
inclusive, consensus government as a way to undermine the Sunni
insurgency and allow U.S. troops to begin pulling out of Iraq.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald)