Largest Sunni Bloc Quits Government
Aug 1 05:00 AM US/Eastern
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political bloc announces its withdrawal from the government.
All six ministers from Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc tendered their resignation from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led coalition government on Wednesday following a month-long row.
“The Front announces its withdrawal from the government of Nuri al-Maliki and the deputy prime minister and the ministers will submit their resignation today,” MP Rafea Issawi said at a Baghdad press conference.
Issawi made the announcement inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone as Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and other senior members of the bloc stood behind him.
Hashemi will remain vice-president, Issawi said, and the bloc’s 44 parliamentarians will continue to attend the National Assembly when it retruns from recess in September.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Accordance Front and a harsh critic of al-Maliki, told The Associated Press his bloc was “still insisting on withdrawing from the government if it doesn’t meet our fair and objective demands.”
“We don’t want to take part in a government which claims it is a national unity one, but instead is sectarian rather than Iraqi,” al-Dulaimi said. Al-Dulaimi himself has been accused by senior Shiite and Kurdish politicians of inciting sectarian strife.
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Don’t read too much into this bit of BS.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:59 am