Iraq leaders seek formula to end crisis.

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s political leaders yesterday held “cordial but candid” talks in an attempt to revive national reconciliation efforts and repair the fractured unity government. The five leaders, representing Iraq’s majority Shia Muslims, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, met for about 90 minutes and are expected to meet again today, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said. It was the first time they had met for two months.

“The meeting was cordial but characterised by candid discussion of the issues and a sense of responsibility to resolve the political crisis afflicting the country,” Salih said. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is under growing pressure from Washington, which is frustrated by negligible political progress while its troops step up operations to quell sectarian violence. Maliki attended the talks with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, Shia Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and Masoud Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. Salih said the leaders discussed the results of preparatory talks that had been going on almost daily since July 15.

The results included tentative agreements on a review of the de-Baathification law, provincial powers and “frameworks for crucial issues dealing with militias, insurgent groups, detainees and powersharing”, Salih said.

The de-Baathification law is one of the thorniest issues up for discussion because it proposes easing restrictions on former members of Saddam Hussain’s Baath party working in the civil service or the military. Washington is keen to see signs of political progress towards national reconciliation before a report on US President George W Bush’s Iraq strategy is presented to the US Congress in mid-September. The report is regarded as a potential watershed in the Iraq war that could trigger a change in US policy.

Democrats in Congress, who want US troops brought home as soon as possible, are likely to seize on any evidence that the strategy is not working. Maliki’s weak and divided government has made little progress in passing key laws aimed at promoting national reconciliation, with political blocs reluctant to compromise.

Nearly half his cabinet has quit or is boycotting meetings. The summit follows the formation this week of a new alliance between the four leading Shia and Kurdish parties, a voting bloc in parliament that cuts across ethnic and sectarian lines. The four parties were unable to persuade the biggest Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, to join them. US ambassador Ryan Crocker and other observers have questioned the credibility of an alliance without Sunni Arabs.

The Iraqi Islamic Party is the biggest party in the Accordance Front, the Sunni Arab bloc that pulled out of Maliki’s cabinet this month in protest at his failure to address their demands for a greater say in government. – Reuters