SALAHADDIN (Iraq), March 13: Kurdish leaders deflated hopes on Sunday for the rapid formation of a national government in Iraq as they refused to compromise their demands for joining a coalition with the country’s powerful Shia bloc. Six weeks after Iraq’s milestone elections, Kurdish leaders insisted on changes to a draft agreement setting out the terms for an alliance with the Shia list, the biggest winner in the new parliament with 146 seats.

“There is progress, but the agreement still needs work and the participation of other political groups in the negotiations to form a government and enlarge its base,” said Fuad Massum, one of four Kurds negotiating with the Shias.

Kurdish negotiators said they would bring their revisions back to Baghdad for another round of talks with the country’s Shia list, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).

The news meant Iraq could be without a functioning government well past the first session of the new 275-member national assembly, scheduled to open on Wednesday.

The plodding negotiations have triggered a wave of criticism from Shia religious leaders, who have demanded the government be put in place to tackle the resistance movement responsible for the wave of suicide bombings.

The Kurdish negotiating team that had thrashed out a preliminary agreement with the Shiites presented the tentative deal on Sunday to Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and members of Jalal al-Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

But Barzani hinted at dissatisfaction with the deal in an interview broadcast on Friday, saying he wanted agreement now on Kurdish claims to the ethnically divided northern oil centre of Kirkuk.—AFP