BAGHDAD, 22 January 2006 — Rival Iraqi parties prepared yesterday for tough negotiations on forming a government of national unity that Washington hopes will end sectarian and ethnic strife tearing the country apart.
As the parties held internal talks a day after the release of election results giving the ruling Shiite Islamist Alliance almost a majority, insurgents set off a car bomb in a crowded Baghdad market, killing one person.
The capital was sealed off on Friday by security forces on alert for attacks by Sunni rebels, who accuse the Shiite Alliance of vote-rigging in last month’s parliamentary election.
A motorcade carrying members of President Jalal Talabani’s staff was attacked on a main road north of Baghdad late on Friday. Police said five people were wounded, including an adviser to the president, when a roadside bomb struck the convoy. Talabani himself was not present.
The militant group Army of Ansar Al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack, according to an Internet statement.
The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television station reported that a little-known militant group calling itself the Revenge Squadron had kidnapped the son of a senior Iraqi Defense Ministry official and threatened to kill him unless security forces stopped cooperating with the United States.
Leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the main Sunni Arab political bloc, met in Baghdad to discuss lodging an appeal against the poll results, which gave the Alliance 128 seats in the 275-seat Parliament.
However, officials at the meeting made it clear the appeal was a formality and Sunni Arab parties would take part in talks to form a government of national unity, which the United States hopes will undermine the insurgency and allow Washington to pull out its troops.
Also part of the tactical maneuvering, Shiite politicians said they, too, would appeal against some of the results. Negotiations on Iraq’s first full-term government since the 2003 US invasion are expected to begin in earnest in the next few days, but tough horse-trading means it may take weeks or even months for a government to be formed.
“I’d be surprised if we have a government before late March,” said a Western diplomat closely following the process.
The Baghdad market blast and the gathering of Sunni parties showed that, while many Sunnis have embraced the US-sponsored political process they first boycotted, some have still not abandoned the way of the gun.
A series of roadside bombings and car bomb attacks killed six people, including three policemen, elsewhere in Iraq.
Sunni Arabs, a minority that was dominant under Saddam Hussein, are wary of the alliance of Shiite parties and fear being marginalized under a new Shiite-led government.
The two main Sunni blocs won 55 seats in the election, giving them a much stronger voice than in last year’s interim assembly, which they boycotted. Other Sunni politicians have four seats in the Council of Representatives.
Washington is putting pressure on the majority Shiites and the Kurds, whose main bloc has 53 seats, to form a government that includes the Sunnis. Even the outgoing interim Cabinet formed by the Shiites and Kurds includes some Sunni figures.
“For us Iraq can’t build on a relatively narrower sectarian or ethnic basis. It has to be inclusive,” said a US official, in Baghdad, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity. “We support a unity government as the best means of bringing Iraqis together after a hard-fought election contest, and we are encouraging all sides in this to look to the advantages.”
