Iraqi leaders agree in principle to enlarge cabinet for unity

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders said on
Thursday that they agree in principle to enlarge the next government's
cabinet to include representatives of other communities in a bid to push
for a national unity government.
"The Kurdish coalition and the Shiite alliance agree in principle on a
government of national unity," Kurdish leader and Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani told reporters after a meeting with Shiite leader Abdul Aziz
al-Hakim in Dokhan, a mountain resort 400 km north of Baghdad.
However, Talabani specified that there would be some restrictions in the
forming of an enlarged cabinet, saying, "the other parties must believe in
certain principles," including "rejection of terrorism."
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite Muslim alliance, visited the
Kurdish capital Arbil on Wednesday to hold talks on forming a consensus
government to soothe Sunni Arabs and secular parties who said the Dec. 15
parliamentary elections were rigged.
After the Dec. 15 elections, disappointed Sunnis and secularists called
for demonstrations to denounce alleged electoral fraud in the elections.
 
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