by Ned Parker
BAGHDAD - Shiite and Kurdish leaders said Friday that Iraq`s next government could be formed within a week as they courted Sunnis and outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi to join a coalition.
A Christian politician with dual Iraqi and Swedish citizenship, held hostage since January 28, was released by his captors, said Sweden`s chief prosecutor.
"I have received verbal confirmation from police investigating the case that he has been released," said Katarina Johansson-Welin without providing details.
Minas Ibrahim al-Yussufi, the secretary general of Iraq`s Christian Democratic Party, was kidnapped in the northern city of Mosul by an armed group calling itself the "Brigades of Iraqi Vengeance."
His family was trying to raise 400,000 dollars ransom after his captors released a video last month showing him begging for his life. It was unclear if anything was paid.
Six weeks after the release of results from the landmark January 30 elections, Iraq still had no new government, but talk of a breakthrough was afoot.
"We have set next Thursday (March 24) as a preliminary date for the national assembly to reconvene," Jawad al-Maliky, a member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), told AFP.
"We have agreed on the principles of the government, but we do not have yet a final deal on the make-up of the government. We hope that will happen before the assembly meets."
Fawzi Hariri, an aide to foreign minister and Kurdish negotiator Hoshyar Zebari, suggested: "Within a week to 10 days the whole thing should be done."
The new parliament held its first historic session Wednesday.
Zebari told AFP the Kurdistan Alliance, with 77 seats in the 275-member parliament, had finally agreed on the terms of forming a coalition government with the UIA, the biggest victor with 146 seats.
"All the principles have been agreed upon by all the parties."
Zebari`s faction of the Kurdish list, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), had pressed last-minute demands on the Shiites over the status of the northern, ethnically divided oil city of Kirkuk and their peshmerga militia.
The deadlock contributed to the failure Wednesday of MPs to choose an executive body or to schedule a second session.
The sides have drafted a written agreement, which is meant to assure the Kurds that their virtual autonomy in the north after years of suffering under detained dictator Saddam Hussein will be protected.
It also commits the next government to taking concrete steps under Iraq`s interim constitution to solving the problem of Kirkuk, from which Saddam expelled tens of thousands of Kurds.
"The issue of Kirkuk has been addressed satisfactorily based on procedures and measures mapped out in the transitional law," Zebari said.
Zebari said the new government is committed to resettling displaced Kurds in the city and arbitrating property disputes between the Kurds and the Arabs who were brought into Kirkuk to replace them.
But the sides will ink the written agreement, formalising their alliance, only after wooing other parties to sign as well, Zebari`s aide Hariri said.
The Kurds and Shiites have started courting the secular ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi and leading politicians like outgoing Sunni president Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar.
The UIA and Kurdistan Alliance met Allawi`s Iraqi list on Thursday and presented it with the agreement between the sides.
"We asked the Iraqi list to give us their vision and idea on whether they will participate in the new government or not. They have given us a positive response," Zebari said, adding that their participation now hinged on cabinet posts offered to them.
A senior member of Allawi`s list, Imad Shibib, confirmed the talks were progressing.
"Until now, we are in negotiations with both lists. We have not come to a decision," he told AFP.
Talks on Friday between the UIA and Kurds were concentrating on awarding government posts among the volatile mix of ethnic and religious groups.
"We`re now reaching out to the other lists. This is why it is taking so long," Zebari said.
One stumbling block is finding ministerial posts for the Sunni Arabs, who had been the ruling elite for most of Iraq`s modern history until the fall of Saddam two years ago. The embittered minority is seen as fuelling the insurgency and widely boycotted the elections.
"It`s neither in our interest or yours that you do not take part in the political process, because your absence will perpetuate the occupation and terror and will bring down the house on everyone," UIA-allied cleric Sadreddin al-Kubanji told Shiites in his weekly sermon in Najaf.
In fresh violence north of the capital, a soldier was kidnapped in Tuz, police said, while a bomb wounded three people near the refinery town of Baiji.
The body of a businessman working with the Americans was found on Friday near Dujail, north of Baghdad, police said. The man had been shot.
Three Iraqi civilians were killed in an accident near Tikrit when they tried to get out of the way of a US military convoy but rammed instead into a contractor`s car travelling with the convoy, said the military.

03/18/2005 17:27 GMT