Acting speaker to convene Iraqi parliament

updated 3:36 p.m. ET April 12, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The acting parliament speaker said Wednesday he will convene the legislature next week to push the formation of a new government that is stalled over who will be prime minister. A car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque, killing at least 20 people.

Other car and roadside bombings killed 13 people, including three U.S. soldiers, and another six civilians were gunned down in Baghdad.

Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni Arab, told a news conference he decided to convene the assembly Monday because “it’s my duty to the Iraqi people in order to preserve the credibility of the democratic process.”

Pachachi added that Shiite politicians told him they hope to have the deadlock over the nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari resolved before the session.

Parliament was elected Dec. 15 but has held only one session because of the dispute over the prime minister.

Khaled al-Attiyah, a member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, said Pachachi’s call for a legislative session Monday was to exert pressure on the Shiites to resolve the dispute over al-Jaafari’s nomination. Al-Attiyah said he did not know whether the Shiites had agreed to attend.

Opposition among sects
As the biggest bloc in parliament, the Shiites have the right to nominate the head of government. But Sunni and Kurdish parties oppose the Shiite choice of al-Jaafari for another term and the Shiites have not agreed whether to replace him.

That has stalled formation of a unity government, which the United States believes is necessary to halt the country’s slide toward anarchy.

Pachachi, a former foreign minister, said he was hopeful for a breakthrough.

“There are indications that cause us to be optimistic,” he said.

Under the constitution, parliament must elect a national president, who in turn designates the nominee of the biggest bloc to form a new government. The prime minister-designate then has 30 days to name a Cabinet, which must be approved by parliament.

The Shiites hold 130 of the 275 seats, not enough to govern or win approval for their nominee without the support of other parties, including the Sunnis and Kurds. Shiite politicians conferred again Wednesday over the al-Jaafari issue.

Rising sectarian tensions have emerged as a significant threat to U.S. efforts to form a stable society in Iraq. Those tensions escalated dramatically after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

That triggered a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics — many of them believed carried out by Shiite militias or death squads operating inside the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry. Hundreds of Shiites have also been killed in attacks since the shrine bombing.

In an interview with the BBC, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said the death squads in the country were not linked to the government but to private security forces.

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