Deputy PM strongest candidate to lead Kurdistan gov’t- spokesperson

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Deputy Prime Minister Burham Saleh is the front-runner to become the next prime minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, according to an official spokesperson. “Burham Saleh is the strongest candidate for the position. That is why he heads our bloc in the alliance with the (Kurdistan) Democratic Party (KDP),” an official spokesperson for the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mullah Bakhtyar, said in a statement published by the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper. “He will step down as a deputy prime minister in the Iraqi government to dedicate himself to political work in the Kurdistan region,” Bakhtyar added. Bakhtyar denied a secret agreement on the matter had been reached between President Jalal al-Talabani and the president of the Kurdistan region, Massoud al-Barazani. SS (P) 1