BAGHDAD, April 7: Iraq’s Shia leader Ibrahim Jaafari was named as Iraq’s next prime minister on Thursday, moving the country a step closer to its first democratically elected government in more than 50 years. Mr Jaafari announced his nomination shortly after Iraq’s new president, Kurdish former guerilla leader Jalal Talabani, was sworn into office in parliament, along with two deputies.

“Today represents a big step forward for Iraq and a big responsibility for me,” Jaafari, who spent more than two decades opposing Saddam Hussein from exile, told reporters.

His appointment to the most powerful post under the interim constitution had long been agreed in principle but was held up by weeks of bargaining over other posts among the Shia and Kurdish groups that dominate the parliament elected on Jan 30.

Mr Jaafari said interim prime minister Iyad Allawi had resigned from his post but would continue as caretaker while he was putting the finishing touches to his cabinet line-up.

“I hope within one or two weeks maximum I will name the cabinet,” a smiling Jaafari said after his formal appointment by Talabani and the Shia and Sunni Arab vice presidents.

“I am going to do my best to finish within two weeks.”

Mr Talabani, 71, took the president’s oath of office a day after his election by parliament, as political and religious leaders looked on at a ceremony inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, seat of government and the vast US embassy.

“I swear by God the great that I will work with devotion to preserve the independence and sovereignty of Iraq and to preserve its democratic and federal system,” Mr Talabani said.

“I will work to preserve all freedoms and the independence of the judiciary, and respect all laws, as God is my witness.”

Afterwards he was given a round of applause and briefly raised his arms in triumph. Shia leader Adel Abdul Mahdi and Sunni Arab elder Ghazi Yawar, previously the interim president, were sworn in as vice-presidents immediately afterwards.—Reuters