BAGHDAD, 17 August 2007 — Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite leaders formed an alliance yesterday to support Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government but failed to bring in Sunni leaders who are crucial to national reconciliation.
Maliki is facing a political crisis after the main Sunni Arab bloc, the Accordance Front, pulled its six ministers out of his Shiite-led national unity government saying it had ignored their demands.
The new alliance includes the two main Kurdish parties in the government, the powerful Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and Maliki’s Shiite Dawa party. But it failed to bring in the Islamic Party, the biggest single Sunni Arab party in Parliament.
Talks to form an alliance began last year with the Islamic Party but broke down over its demand that it be given a greater say in security matters. The same demand triggered the withdrawal this month of the Accordance Front which comprises three parties, including the Islamic Party.
But President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Maliki left the door open to other groups to join their alliance. “This agreement is open for everybody and for all who believe in the principles and the political process,” Talabani said at a ceremony to announce the new alliance.
The latest political development was announced as an Interior Ministry official put the number of people killed in four suicide truck bomb attacks on the Yazidi religious sect late Tuesday at over 400.
Maj. Gen. Abdel Karim Khalaf said authorities expected the death toll to go up. He said more than two tons of explosives were packed into the four bombs that ripped through two villages in Nineveh province.
