Lawmaker says called for dissolving IAF

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Legislator Taha al-Leheibi on Sunday said that his National Democratic Grouping did not quit the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF) last week, adding he called for dissolving the front, not withdrawing it. “We did not quit the front. We asked for having it dissolved and that all parliamentary blocs work on that,” Leheibi said in statements to IraqiNews.com news agency. On Saturday (Jan. 10), Leheibi announced his Grouping quit the IAF for what he called “the front’s disrespect for the rules and principles on which it was established”, the second split within the Sunni bloc in a matter of two weeks. “We are among the founders of the front. Yesterday (Jan. 17), we were in a meeting with members of the front,” he said. The IAF is a political coalition established on October 26, 2005. It is currently composed of two parties – Vice President Tareq al-Hashimi’s Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and the IAF leader Adnan al-Dulaimi’s Iraq People’s Congress (IPC) – after the withdrawal of Khalaf al-Alyan’s National Dialogue Council (NDC) and the Independent Arab Bloc following the resignation of Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who offered his resignation after a squabble he had with members from security & defense and legal committees. Earlier on Sunday, the parliament speakership formed a committee of the parliamentary bloc leaders or their representatives to set a timeframe for selecting a speaker to succeed Mashhadani. AmR (S) 1