NA to hold “important” meeting with Kurdish blocs

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: An “important” meeting will be held Sunday between the National Alliance (NA) and the Kurdish blocs to discuss the acceleration of forming a new government, leading member in the State of Law bloc said. “The meeting will discuss the mechanisms to activate efforts aimed to form the new government by discussing the posts of president and parliament speaker,” Khalid al-Assadi told IraqiNews.com news agency. The NA, uniting the State of Law bloc led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi National Alliance of Shiite parties, had officially announced the extension of Maliki’s nomination for the prime minister post, despite the absence of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and al-Fadila (Virtue) Party from the meeting. The leaderships of both blocs, meanwhile, announced that they had not withdrawn from the alliance, but expressed “reservations over the mechanism of picking Maliki for the post. After the NA announcement, al-Iraqiya bloc of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had called all other political blocs to accelerate the formation of a “national unity government,” to include Iraqiya as well, along with the means to share ministerial and other leading state posts in a way that “guarantees a fair power sharing in accordance with the rights of different blocs”. SKH (S)/AmR 1