BAGHDAD - A secular Sunni bloc on Saturday ended its boycott of the parliament, giving a boost to national reconciliation just days ahead of key hearings in Washington to assess political progress in Iraq.
The move came as the commander of US-led forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said the country's war-weary leaders had largely failed to capitalise on gains achieved by a "surge" of troops deployed to quell the daily bloodshed.
The National Dialogue Front led by Sunni Arab politician Saleh al-Mutlak said in a statement that its 11 MPs had returned to the 275-seat legislature on Saturday after its demands were met.
"The government has agreed to allocate funds to displaced families... and it has agreed to delay negotations on the oil law until after Ramadan," it said, referring to the Muslim fasting month due to begin next week.
"We are therefore today heeding the call of the Speaker to end our boycott."
The Sunni bloc was the last of several boycotting groups to return to the assembly, although Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet is still running at just over half-strength after walkouts and resignations by 17 of 40 ministers.
The return of the bloc boosts the embattled assembly as it prepares to tackle key legislation the US sees as benchmarks to measure Iraq's progress towards national unity.
One law will allow members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party back into positions of authority, and the other, even more bitterly contested by the fractious leaders, will determine how Iraq's oil revenues should be shared.
From Monday, General Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are to appear before Congress to present their assessments of the situation in Iraq.
Their reports are expected to influence Washington's future strategy in the country.
But in a letter to US troops released on Friday, Petraeus said that Iraqi leaders had not used the "surge" of troops to help bridge their differences.
"One of the justifications for the surge, after all, was that it would help create the space for Iraqi leaders to tackle the tough questions and agree on key pieces of 'national reconciliation' legislation," he said in the letter.
"It has not worked out as we had hoped."
In the letter Petraeus did not discuss pulling out any troops from Iraq, but in comments to the Boston Globe published on Friday, he said he will recommend a gradual reduction of US forces from next spring in his testimony to Congress.
"Based on the progress our forces are achieving, I expect to be able to recommend that some of our forces will be redeployed without replacement," Petraeus told the Globe.
The possible force reduction will come as the five brigades deployed to Iraq as part of the "surge" strategy end their tours of duty and are not replaced, the daily said. A brigade consists of 3,500 to 4,500 soldiers.
Offering a mixed assessment of security in Iraq, Petraeus said that US-led forces had "seized the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas," even though there had been "uneven" progress.
Progress "has not, to be sure, been uniform across Baghdad or across Iraq," he said.
"However, the overall trajectory has been encouraging, especially when compared to the situation at the height of the sectarian violence in late 2006 and early 2007."
Meanwhile violence continues to rage, with at least 10 people killed in bombings and shootings across Iraq, including four in the Shiite holy town of Kufa, medics and police said.
A witness told AFP that a man placed a bag near a vendor -- a young boy -- in a busy marketplace in Kufa and told him he would return soon to retrieve it.
"But minutes later the bag exploded," the witness said, on condition of anonymity.
Elsewhere six other people were killed.
The US military said around 400 American and Iraqi troops were continuing an air and ground assault launched on Thursday around the northern oil city of Kirkuk to flush out Sunni insurgents.
The operation had already led to the detention of 17 suspects, it said.
The military also said on Saturday that one of its unmanned aerial vehicles had dropped a bomb and killed two suspected roadside bombers in Nineveh province, north of the capital.
The military hailed the September 1 operation as the first of its kind.
bur-jds/bpz/srm

09/08/2007 13:53 GMT