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BAGHDAD, March 4: Iraq’s president put its prime minister under new pressure to quit on Saturday, saying his resignation would help persuade other parties to form a national unity government that could halt a slide toward civil war.
As 12 people were killed in new sectarian violence, the top US military commander in the Middle East called for a broad coalition of the kind Washington hopes can foster stability and allow it to start withdrawing its 133,000 troops.
Convening a first sitting of the new parliament elected in December, Iraq’s Kurdish President Jalal Talabani added his public voice to pressure from Sunni, Kurdish and other leaders for Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari, a Shia, to step aside.
“Opposing Jaafari’s nomination is not a personal issue,” he said. “It is in the interest of forming a government of national unity.”
The Shia United Alliance, by far the biggest bloc in the new parliament, nominated Mr Jaafari to keep his job despite security and economic difficulties and criticism of his handling of violence that has killed more than 500 people since the destruction of a major shrine in Samarra on Feb 22.
Smaller factions are refusing to join a coalition he leads, however, and rival Shia leaders are considering putting up a new nominee, political sources say.
Parliament is likely to sit around next Sunday, government sources say, but forming a government may take much longer.
“The United Alliance has the right to nominate the prime minister but parliament has to approve it,” said Mr Talabani.
The premier must be confirmed by a two-thirds majority.
US APPEAL: Gen John Abizaid, head of US Central Command, met both Talabani and Jaafari in Baghdad. “The government of national unity must be formed to bring the country together,” he said.
MILITIA PLAN: President Talabani and Interior Minister Bayan Jabor also called for sectarian and ethnic militias to join the US-trained security forces — something US officials in Baghdad have been long been urging.
Government leaders, including Talabani and Jabor, are in parties which have justified maintaining their own militia forces, however, and Mr Jabor set no timetable for any change.
“There is no reasonable justification for any fear of the militias at the present time,” Mr Jabor said.
Sunni leaders have accused the government of condoning death squads targeting Sunnis and operating from inside the Shia-controlled interior ministry.
Disparate Sunni groups which have fought US and government forces have lately been forming into their own more cohesive militia in western Iraq, militants and Sunni community leaders say, insisting they need to defend themselves.
The militia backgrounds of many existing police and troops has also left a question mark over their loyalties.
Daily life in Baghdad returned to something close to normal amid the political wrangling following the lifting of Friday’s daytime curfew that banned vehicle traffic in an effort to avert violence around mosques.—Reuters
