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Kurd Leaders Say They're Near Shiite Deal
44 minutes ago
By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Kurdish leaders said Sunday that they were nearing completion on a deal with the dominant Shiite-led alliance on forming a coalition government at this week's National Assembly, while two American security contractors were killed and a third wounded by a roadside bomb south of the Iraqi capital.
The three contractors were working for Blackwater Security, a North Carolina-based contracting firm that provides security for U.S. State Department officials in Iraq (news - web sites). They were attacked Saturday on the main road to Hillah, south of Baghdad, U.S. Embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said.
Two Iraqis also were killed and five wounded Sunday when a roadside bomb missed a U.S. convoy in al-Obeidi in southeastern Baghdad, said Dr. Ali Karim of Kindi hospital, where the casualties were brought.
In the north, Kurdish leaders said they would go ahead with a deal they made with the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance last week to help form a coalition government when the 275-member National Assembly convenes on Wednesday.
The Kurds won 75 seats in the Assembly during Jan. 30 elections. The alliance won 140 seats and needs Kurdish support to assemble the two-thirds majority to elect a president, who will then give a mandate to the prime minister.
"Talks between us did not fail. Both delegations went back to review the negotiations," said Fuad Masoum, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Interim Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd, said the two sides were very close to reaching a comprehensive agreement, including the makeup of the coalition government and denied reports that their power-sharing deal had collapsed.
"The Kurdish side will fully cooperate to reach a comprehensive agreement that will guarantee a national unity government for Iraq up to handling the upcoming challenges," Saleh told The Associated Press.
"There are some details that have to be determined soon and there are some loose ends regarding some details but at the same time there are many principles that were agreed upon," he added.
Interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, said a Kurdish delegation was to meet with the alliance.
"We are going to Baghdad to continue discussion, we are very close to a final agreement. The meeting of the assembly on the 16th will take place as planned and there's no changes," he said.
Alliance officials were more guarded in their comments following reports about Kurdish uncertainty over the deal that appeared to be connected to concerns over the choice of conservative Islamic Dawa party leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister.
"I can not say that the negotiations with the Kurds have collapsed, but no final agreement has been reached until now," said alliance member Ali al-Faisal.
The two camps are to publicly formalize their deal on Monday.
The Kurds are thought to be concerned with al-Jaafari's conservative brand of Islam and that he may not be a strong supporter of federalism which they have insisted on. Alliance deputy Ahmad Chalabi talked with Kurdish leaders on Saturday, and the two main Kurdish parties were meeting Sunday. Alliance leaders also were meeting in Baghdad.
Kurds and alliance officials said earlier that both sides agreed that Iraq would not become an Islamic state, a desire also expressed by the country's most powerful Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
In other violence, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle on Saturday outside the house of the town's chief of special police forces, killing four people and injuring several others, in Sharqat, 160 miles northwest of Baghdad, police Col. Jassim al-Jubouri said.
A U.S. soldier also was gunned down late Saturday in a small arms fire attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the U.S. command said Sunday.
The death brought to at least 1,514 the number of members of the U.S. military who've died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Foreign contractors, too, are often targeted by anti-U.S. guerrillas. At least 232 American civilian security and reconstruction contractors were killed in Iraq up to the end of 2004, according to the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
The Blackwater employees killed Saturday were in the last vehicle in a four-vehicle convoy and were traveling to Hillah from Baghdad, Callahan said. A foreign security official said they were in a black Chevrolet Suburban. The road south traverses an area known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the frequency of insurgent attacks.
Blackwater said the contractors, who were not identified, were in a convoy that was attacked on a highway just southeast of Baghdad's airport. The company said the wounded employee's injuries were not life-threatening.
"We grieve today for the loss of our colleagues and we pray for their families," the company said.
In March 2004, four Blackwater employees were killed in the turbulent city of Fallujah, and two of the corpses were hung from a bridge, triggering a bloody three-week siege of the restive Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad soon afterward.
nosarcasm said:yep they did not do a good job in hiding their agenda.
Death here , death there, milkman in China kidnapped ......
Was it supposed to be about the positive aspect of a new Iraqui goverment.
No too positive for Todd Pitman.
Ugh.
journalism reaches new lows every day.
Bullypulpit said:It bleeds, it leads...An age old rule of journalism.
