Allawi's bloc announces it will keep Cabinet duties, but skip meetings

Left: Ayad Allawi was the interim Prime Minister of Iraq prior to the 2005 legislative elections. He has been working to form a new coalition, with the goal of replacing Maliki as Prime Minister. Above: The major players -- Nuri al-Maliki (Prime Minister, Shiite), Tariq al-Hashemi (one of two Vice Presidents, Sunni), Moqtada al-Sadr ('fiery' anti-American cleric, Shiite), Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim (head of the largest Shiite coalition), Jalal Talabani (President of Iraq, Kurd, Qadiri Sufi sect of Sunnism), and Massoud Barzani (President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Naqshbandi Sufi sect of Sunnisim). The Sunni bloc recently returned to parliament after Mahmud Mashhadani was reinstated as speaker, but has withdrawn its cabinet ministers from Maliki's cabinet. Sadr's parliamentary bloc also returned recently to the legislature following a protest of the most recent bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, but also withdrew from the cabinet in April. The U.S. military has said that Sadr is back in Iran, which Sadr's aides deny.

Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National List (INL) officially announced on Tuesday that its ministers would no longer attend any cabinet meetings but would continue discharging duties from their offices.

The INL called on its ministers to discuss all sensitive issues urgently with the bloc leader and will notify the president and prime minister officially of the decision, INL member Iyad Jamal al-Din said in a statement during a press conference on Tuesday.

Allawi had asked on Sunday the ministers of his bloc, which has 11 seats in the Iraqi parliament, to boycott cabinet meetings "as a preliminary step to withdrawing" from the government of Nouri al-Maliki in protest against its polices.

From VOI

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