Talabani arrives in Arbil for talks with Barazani

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is scheduled to arrive in Arbil later on Saturday for talks with Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barazani on the recent developments regarding negotiations among the Kurdish blocs. The visit coincides with visits by Vice President Adel Abdulmahdi, a leading member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), and al-Iraqiya bloc leader Iyad Allawi, a former prime minister of Iraq, on the war-torn country’s political crisis. “Talabani will meet with Barazani and the leaders of the five parties allied within the Kurdistan bloc to discuss developments of the bloc delegation’s talks, the government formation issue and the political scene in general,” Fouad Hussein, the chief of the Iraqi Kurdistan presidential cabinet, told IraqiNews.com news agency. Barazani, during a meeting held with the Kurdistan blocs’ delegation in Arbil on Sept. 16, 2010, had revealed an initiative on power sharing, enhancement of national consensus and the inclusion of all blocs that won seats in the March 7 legislative elections into a national partnership government. The Kurdistan blocs alliance, officially announced on May 9, 2010 to unify the Kurds’ demands, encompasses four parties: the Kurdistan Alliance that includes Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) with 43 seats, the Change Movement with eight seats, the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) with four seats and the Islamic Group in Kurdistan with two seats. The Kurdish alliance has a total 57 out of the Iraqi parliament’s 325 seats. Abdulmahdi had arrived in the Kurdish city of Arbil on Friday for talks with Barazani on the government formation crisis. Iraq’s political arena is witnessing incessant differences since the announcement of the March 7 legislative elections, in which Allawi’s al-Iraqiya garnered 91 seats, followed by its archrival incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawlat al-Qanoon (State of Law) with 89 seats. The State of Law clenched an alliance with other blocs, notably the al-Ahrar (Liberals) bloc of the Sadrist Movement, which won 40 seats, so as to make the largest parliamentary bloc. The move is vehemently objected by al-Iraqiya on the grounds that it had won the largest number of seats in the parliamentary elections and accordingly entitled to form a government. AmR (S)/SR 1