Three months after a landmark election, Iraq's new parliament convened for the first time yesterday amid worsening communal violence and little sign of a deal on a government of national unity.
But the inaugural session lasted just 40 minutes and was adjourned after all 275 members of the national assembly were collectively sworn in.
Adnan Pachachi, 83, who as eldest member presided over the new assembly, said the session would adjourn until political parties could agree on who was to be elected speaker.
PHOTO: AP
"It has been decided to leave the session open pending political agreement on the designation of a speaker and his two deputies," said Pachachi, a former foreign minister.
Political parties remain deadlocked in their talks on forming a national unity government after the Dec. 15 election to choose the first full-term parliament following the US-led war that ousted former president Saddam Hussein in 2003.
"It is difficult to chose a new speaker and his deputies until a deal is reached on the whole government package," Hajem al-Hassani, the outgoing speaker, said in a televised interview.
The streets of Baghdadl were eerily quiet with vehicle traffic barred to keep car bombers at bay, while police and army units multiplied their checkpoints across the city. The 275 members of parliament met behind blast walls and razor wire in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
The government told civil servants to take a holiday and many other residents bunkered down at home, fearing attacks by insurgents bent on proving the caretaker government cannot guarantee security. Most shops remained closed.
Iraq's new parliament will again be dominated by the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance which can count on the support of 130 members of parliament.
The Kurdish coalition has 53 seats, while various Sunni parties control at least 55 seats. Secular-based and minority parties hold the remaining seats.
President Jalal Talabani suggested on Wednesday that the long awaited Cabinet should be ready by the end of this month, a conclusion deemed overly optimistic by rival politicians.
Outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari told state TV that forming the Cabinet would take a little longer: "I think a month is enough to form a government, if we keep to the Constitution."
Other politicians, however, note that deep gulfs remain on many key issues, including the Shiite choice of Jaafari to remain prime minister.
"I don't expect to see a new government before May," said one participant in the leaders' conference, Hassan Shumari, from the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.
Deadly violence erupted in Halabja when Iraqi security forces fired into a crowd of Kurds rioting on the anniversary of Saddam's gas attack on the Kurdish town.
A 14-year-old boy was killed and six demonstrators in the clashes as some 7,000 protesters, including relatives of the 5,000 victims of the March 17, 1988 aerial attack, set up road blocks, attacked government offices and set fire to a memorial built to honor the dead.
Meanwhile, police overnight found 25 corpses that had been dumped in different parts of Baghdad, an official said.
also see story:
Milosevic and Saddam in the dock: A farce
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS