Sunni bloc slams new Maliki alliance

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 The largest Sunni bloc recently returned to parliament after Mahmud Mashhadani was reinstated as speaker, but has withdrawn its cabinet ministers from Maliki's cabinet.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. Not pictured is former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose smaller Sunni bloc is boycotting cabinet meetings.

Leaders of Iraq’s disenchanted Sunni Arab community on Friday slammed the new Shia and Kurdish alliance formed to salvage Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki’s national unity government...

The National Concord Front, the main Sunni Arab political bloc in the country’s 275-member parliament, said the new tie-up between the two Shia and two Kurdish parties was a “futile” exercise...

“The leaders should not have announced the alliance before convincing all the effective political leaderships ... whose participation could have broken the stagnation (in the political process) and convinced the boycotting parties,” the Front said in a statement Friday.

The Sunni bloc has 44 members in the assembly and has also withdrawn its ministers from Maliki’s Shia-led government since August 1, effectively paralysing the political process in Iraq.

“The Front urges all parties to put pressure on the government to reactivate a real participation in the political process rather than have an arrangement where there is no authority to other parties (who are outside the alliance),” the Front said.

Read the rest at the Khaleej Times

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