Ahmadinejad, Assad express support for forming national Iraq govt.

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Syrian and Iranian Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Mahmud Ahmadinejad expressed support for the formation of a national Iraqi government representative of all groups in the country, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). “Syrian President Assad arrived on Saturday morning in the Iranian capital Tehran to meet Iranian President Ahmadinejad for talks over regional developments and bilateral relations,” SANA reported. The two sides expressed keenness on Iraq’s unity, sovereignty and independent and voiced support for the formation of a national unity government that would represent all groups of the Iraqi people under good relations with all neighboring countries. The National Alliance (NA), which has 159 out of a total 325 parliamentary seats, had announced on Friday that it picked Nouri al-Maliki as a candidate for the prime minister post, ending nearly five months of haggling since it was set up and seven months after the March 7 legislative elections, regarding the mechanisms to choose a prime minister in light of a conflict between the bloc’s key members Dawlat al-Qanoon, or State of Law, (89 seats) and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), which obtained 70 seats. AmR (P) 1