Asia

Home page

Asia

Iraq's Maliki hopes for government deal by next week

02 July 2014 20:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is fighting for his political life as a Sunni insurgency fractures the country, said on Wednesday he hoped parliament could form a new government in its next session after the first collapsed in discord, APA reports quoting Associated Press.

Baghdad can ill afford a long delay. Large swathes of the north and west have fallen under the control of an al Qaeda splinter group that has declared it is setting up a "caliphate" and has vowed to march on the capital.

Yet the mounting concern and pressure from the United States, Iran, the United Nations and Iraq's own Shi'ite clerics have done little to end the paralyzing divisions between Iraq's main ethnic and sectarian blocs.

Sunnis and Kurds walked out of parliament's first session on Tuesday, complaining that Shi'ites had failed to nominate a prime minister; they see Maliki as the main obstacle to resolving the crisis and hope he will step aside.

Under the system put in place after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the premiership is traditionally given to a Shi'ite, while the speaker of the house has been a Sunni and the president, a largely ceremonial role, has been a Kurd.

In his weekly televised address, Maliki said he hoped parliament could next Tuesday get past its "state of weakness".

"God willing, in the next session we will overcome it with cooperation and agreement and openness," he said. "There is no security without complete political stability."

But it is far from clear when leaders in Baghdad might reach a consensus. All the main ethnic blocs are beset by internal divisions, and none has yet decided who to put forward for its designated position. Sunnis and Kurds say they want Shi'ites to choose a premier before they announce their nominees, while the Shi'ites say the Sunnis should first name the speaker.

"Each bloc has its own problems now," said Muhannad Hussam, a politician and aide to leading Sunni lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq.

If the Shi'ite bloc failed to replace Maliki, he said, there was a risk Sunni lawmakers would abandon the political process altogether. "There would be no more Iraq," he said.

NEED TO BE PATIENT

Longtime Maliki ally Sami Askari said forming a government could take until the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. But he played down the risk of the state collapsing, saying Maliki's caretaker government would continue to function.

"The reality is that we need to be patient," Askari said. "We will have a government in the end -- but not soon."

Residents of Baghdad were increasingly frustrated with the familiar sight of officials squabbling while the country burns.

"I'm so angry with all these politicians," said Dhamee Sattar Shafiq, a university statistics professor, shopping in a mixed neighborhood of Sunnis and Shi'ites.

"This country is headed for disaster and these men are just working for their own causes."

Down the road, Najaa Hassan, a 54-year-old carpenter, was similarly irritated. "Democracy has brought us many problems that we really don't need," he said.

Outside the capital, fighting flared again. Medical sources and witnesses said at least 11 people, including women and children, had been killed when Iraqi helicopters attacked Shirqat, 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad.

Witnesses said the helicopters were targeting a municipal building where militants were sheltering, and that the air strike also hit three nearby houses.

"We have received 11 bodies and 18 wounded from the helicopters' bombardment. Some children are in critical condition," said Hamid al-Jumaili, a doctor in Shirqat's hospital.

The prime minister's military spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassim Atta, made no specific mention of the incident but listed Shirqat as one of several locations where the air force had been active during the past 24 hours.

The government faces a formidable foe in the Islamic State, which shortened its name from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant this week and named its leader "caliph", the historical title of successors of the Prophet Mohammad who ruled the Muslim world.