BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari handed President Jalal Talabani his proposed cabinet list Tuesday, state television reported, after nearly three months of protracted consultations which tested Washington's patience.
Jaafari also unveiled the list before a restricted meeting of his winning United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), said Iraqiya TV. But it was not immediately known when parliament would be asked to approve it.
A senior member of the Shiite-dominated alliance, Jawad Maliki, told AFP "the government will be announced tonight, but no names will immediately be made public".
"There are still problems in deciding who will hold the oil and interior ministries," he cautioned.
According to Iraqiya television, Sadoun Dulaimi, a Sunni, was named as defense minister.
Politicians had previously said the defense portfolio would go to a Sunni in an attempt to reach out to those who boycotted the January 30 election.
In addition, Jaafari has named three deputy premiers in an attempt to spread power among the country's ethnic groups.
Roj Nuri Shaways, a Kurd, former Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi, and Sunni MP Saad al-Lehebi were all named as deputy premiers, Iraqiya reported.
Jaafari's list includes several outgoing ministers remaining in their posts, including Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, as foreign minister and Nasreen Mustafa Barwari as minister of public works.
In addition, Sami al-Majoun was named minister of justice and Ali Abdul Amir Allawi minister of finance, according to a partial list provided by the television.
Supporters of outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular pro-Western Shiite, were not expected to participate in the new government after Jaafari rejected their terms.
Three Sunni members of the UIA said Tuesday they were withdrawing from the list, which holds 146 seats in the 275-member parliament, for being too "sectarian", Mudher Shawket, one of the three, told AFP.
The majority Shiites were expected to hold 17 cabinet seats. The Kurds, who have 77 MPs, were expected to get eight, and the Sunni Arabs six.
Sunnis dominated Saddam Hussein's regime and all previous Iraqi governments but won just 17 seats in parliament after largely boycotting the January 30 election.
The Christian and Turkmen minorities were expected to get one ministry each.
The news of the cabinet list being handed to Talabani came after Washington expressed fear that the continuing deadlock was squandering the political momentum toward democracy created by the successful election.
"I think everybody believes that the Iraqi people now deserve a government, given that they took (a) risk to vote," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"We've had opportunities to represent those views to a number of Iraqi leaders," she said. "And we're going to continue to say that it is important to keep momentum in the political process."
Earlier in the day, Iraqi police hailed what they termed a major coup against Sunni Arab insurgents, announcing the arrests of 305 suspects, including 11 from other Arab countries.
"Among them, 85 admitted to carrying out terrorist attacks and 11 were foreigners from Arab countries, including Egyptians, Palestinians and Sudanese," Brigadier General Abdul Hanin al-Imara said.
The detainees, some of whom were arrested in the town of Madain, scene of an alleged mass hostage-taking of Shiite residents earlier this month, included suspected members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna, he said.
The militant group, which has released videotapes of a number of executions of foreign hostages in the past, on Tuesday posted a statement on the Internet saying that it had kidnapped six Sudanese.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman was shot dead and four others wounded in a bomb attack late Tuesday, an interior ministry official said.
In Bucharest, the employer of one of three kidnapped Romanian journalists held hostage in Iraq said they were still alive after he was contacted by their kidnappers.
The journalists' captors had set a deadline of Tuesday afternoon for Romania to announce the withdrawal of its 860 troops from Iraq or see the three hostages executed, in a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.

04/26/2005 17:40 GMT