March 7, 2005 in Nation/World

Iraqi politicians set to convene for historic parliamentary session

Associated Press
 

Nobel candidate?

A group of exiled Iraqi Christians in the United States said Sunday it has launched a petition nominating Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric for the Nobel Peace Prize, drawing more than 7,000 signatures from around the world.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 75, is Iraq’s most-revered Shiite cleric and a symbol of Shiite political power. The group said he has repeatedly opposed anti-American violence, including a bloody summer uprising by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sistani “gave Muslims all around the globe a good example how to follow peaceful ways to resolve complex social (and) political challenges that face them, condemning terror and emphasizing … rule of law,” the petition said.

The petition, posted on the Internet on Feb. 27, was initiated by members of the Iraqi Chaldean community in El Cajon, Calif., near San Diego, who belong to one of Iraq’s tiny Christian minorities.

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country’s first democratically elected parliament in modern history as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.

The more powerful prime minister’s job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq – Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

“The agreement states that Jalal Tal-abani takes the presidential post and one of the United Iraqi Alliance members takes the prime minister’s post,” Azad Jundiyan, a Talabani spokesman, said.

He added the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance also reached preliminary agreement with the Kurds on their other conditions – including extending their territories to include Kirkuk.

Jundiyan said they wanted the deal on paper before going though with it, while alliance officials, including Ahmad Chalabi, said those negotiations were not over.

Baghdad’s new Shiite governor, Ali Fadhil al-Imseer, took office Sunday to become the city’s first democratically elected municipal official since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Provincial and municipal elections were held alongside national ones on Jan. 30.

In Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen killed a prominent Sunni Arab politician. Hana Abdul Qader, a lawyer and former member of Mosul’s previous city council, was shot while leaving her home, said Noor Al-Din Saied, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic party in Mosul.

U.S. soldiers assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and Iraqi forces arrested more than 60 suspected insurgents in the city of Haswa, 31 miles south of Baghdad, on Saturday, the U.S. military said Sunday.

State-run Al-Iraqiya television also reported that Barham Saleh, a Kurd who is deputy prime minister for national security affairs, confirmed that the 275-seat National Assembly elected in January would convene March 16.

That is the anniversary of the 1988 Saddam-ordered chemical attack on the northern Kurdish town of Halabja, which killed 5,000 people.

© Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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