IRAQ:IRAQ'S SUNNI parliamentary bloc yesterday froze talks on rejoining the government due to a dispute over ministerial portfolios. The suspension amounts to a rebuff for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who has been trying to broaden the ruling coalition comprising two fundamentalist Shia and two Kurdish parties with a combined strength of 110 seats in the 275-member parliament.
"The talks yielded nothing and the government's response was not in line with our demands so we have decided to suspend them," stated Adnan al-Dulaimi, chief of the Sunni National Accordance Front, with 44 seats.
He insists it should regain the planning ministry which is headed by a defector, Ali Baban, expelled for staying at his post after the Front imposed the boycott.
Mr Maliki's offer of communications was rejected. Differences deepened when Mr Maliki turned down a Front candidate for a portfolio. Mr Dulaimi demands "one key portfolio or two service ministries". His aim is to demonstrate to frustrated Iraqis that the Front can deliver improvements at a time there is little electricity and water.
The only other Sunni in the cabinet is defence minister Abdel-Qader al-Obeidi, an independent.
The three-party Accordance Front withdrew its five ministers last August to protest its marginalisation. Reconciliation talks began after Mr Maliki cracked down on the militia of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and began to implement an amnesty for political prisoners, the majority of whom are Sunnis.
Sadr's faction with six cabinet posts and 32 seats in the assembly, pulled out of the government last year because of its refusal to secure a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. Sunni and Sadrist cabinet positions have not been filled.
Fahila, another Shia party with 15 seats, boycotted after it lost the oil ministry.
These defections have transformed the 39-member cabinet into a truncated minority coalition.
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