Iraq parliament convenes in deadlock
Thursday 16 March 2006, 12:09 Makka Time, 9:09 GMT
The session is said to be largely devoid of practical meaning
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.
"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"
An Iraqi parliamentarian
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.
Agencies
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