Iraq parliament in deadlock over choice of speaker

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament, meeting for only the second time since landmark elections two months ago, failed Tuesday to pick a new speaker as Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians bickered over cabinet posts.
With Iraq's government still in limbo after the January 30 election, insurgents continued to cause mayhem as a car bomb exploded in the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk, killing one person and wounded 17.
The parliament session had been due to start at 11 am (0800 GMT) but was held up for more than three hours as the winning Shiite and Kurdish blocs waited for the Sunni minority to decide on a candidate for parliament speaker.
Within minutes of the opening of the session, acting speaker Sheikh Dhari al-Fayad asked the 275-member assembly to adjourn because of the deadlock over the choice of his successor, a largely symbolic post.
"The principal lists are asking to delay the vote for another time so the Sunnis can finish talks among themselves to choose a nominee," he said.
Underscoring the violence that the new government must confront when it takes office, two mortar rounds shook the Green Zone where the parliament is based just minutes before the session convened.
Two months after the epic election, the country's ethnic and religious groups have stumbled in forming a government, quarreling over important posts such as the oil ministry and contentious issues like Islam's role in politics.
The Shiites and Kurds had agreed to award the post of speaker to one of around 20 Sunni Arabs in parliament in a bid to reach out to the embittered community that largely boycotted the election.
The Shiites were backing United Iraqi Alliance member Sheikh Fawaz al-Jarba, a Sunni tribal leader from the powerful Shammar tribal confederation, which straddles the sectarian divide.
A Shiite negotiator said the Kurds wanted outgoing Sunni Arab industry minister Hajem al-Hassani, who won a seat in parliament as part of the list of President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, also a Sunni.
But Hassani told reporters he did not want the job and hinted at internal discord among the Sunnis.
Sunni representatives were "presenting proposals to those who are absent from the national assembly. The problem is that those who are not in the assembly do not want candidates inposed on them," Hassani said.
"I hope we can choose the head of parliament today."
Minutes before the parliament session, UIA deputy Abbas al-Bayati warned: "There is a crisis right now to convince Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar to be president of the national assembly."
Yawar's office said Monday that the tribal magnate has been resisting persistent pressure to assume the symbolic post.
Desperate for progress, the various parties had hoped for a smooth parliament session that would approve a speaker and two deputies but it descended into an embarrassing debacle.
The stalemate over speaker was a reminder of the fractured state of the Sunni community, which has divided along tribes, religious and secular lines in the aftermath of president Saddam Hussein's ouster by US troops two years ago.
Many Sunnis have given tacit support to the insurgency sweeping the country and Shiites and Kurds are desperate to win their support.
Secular politicians Yawar, Adnan Pachachi and Sharif Ali, heir to Iraq's deposed monarchy, have been trying to bring together the disparate community.
The Kirkuk bomb went off in the path of a convoy carrying the city's water chief, Abdulqader Zanganah, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in the second assassination attempt against a KDP official in three days.
Several buildings in the predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Rahimawa were also damaged by the blast, said the area's police chief, Colonel Adel Zeinalbeddin.
He said preliminary inquiries suggested that a bomb-rigged vehicle parked on a sidestreet had been detonated by remote control.
One civilian was killed and 17 others wound, among them eight of Zanganah's bodyguards, hospital officials said. Zanganah's condition was not immediately known.
KDP leader Massoud Barzani has been one of the most outspoken champions of Kurdish demands for Kirkuk to be incorporated in their autonomous region in northern Iraq, despite the opposition of the city's Turkmen minority and Arabs settled in the city under Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Kurdish alliance emerged as the second largest bloc from January's elections after the main Shiite list and its support is vital for the two-thirds majority required to approve a new government.
The Kurds have made the Kirkuk issue a central demand in coalition talks, which are still dragging on more than eight weeks after the election.
Meanwhile, the Romanian foreign ministry announced that three journalists working for private television station Prima TV were feared missing in Iraq.
"Contacted by the management of Prima TV about the possible disappearance in Iraq of three of its journalists, the ministry and the main intelligence services have formed a crisis cell," a statement said.
The apparent disappearance of the journalists, including a woman, follows a surprise visit to Romania's 800 soldiers in Iraq by President Traian Basescu on Sunday.
Prima TV's news director Dan Dumitru said the station's management had received a telephone call Monday during which they "heard voices speaking Arabic as well as journalist Marie-Jeanne Ion calling out in English: 'Don't kill us, we are journalists, we don't have any money'."

03/29/2005 11:13 GMT