Word: maliki
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Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, alarmed that the agreement - which has taken nine months of painstaking negotiations - was about to unravel, fired broadsides in all directions. At a press conference, he lambasted naysayers as political opportunists who were trying to hold his government for ransom, in effect working against the national interest. His anger was directed not only at the Sunni, Sadrist and secular blocks in parliament, which have formed a loose coalition to oppose the SOFA; he also took an unrelated sideswipe at Kurdish politicians, without whose help he cannot hope to have the agreement ratified...
...Maliki may have been emboldened by demonstrations in support of the agreement that have taken place in several cities. Or he may just be desperate: if he can't break the coalition opposed to the deal, the deal is effectively dead. Hoping, perhaps, to frighten his opponents into their senses, he painted a grim picture of what would happen if the SOFA weren't ratified. Iraq, he said, would have to ask the United Nations to renew the mandate that allows the U.S. military to occupy the country, and that would mean Iraq's security would remain in American hands...
...Kurds have signed contracts with foreign oil companies to exploit oil fields in their region, contracts that Baghdad's Oil Ministry says are illegal. In his comments last week, Prime Minister al-Maliki made it clear that the central government must have full responsibility over security, sovereignty and "other issues". "If there is no clear vision of the political system and sovereignty, we will turn into real governments fighting each other," he said...
...Maliki will address the nation on Monday in a bid to garner public support for the agreement. Washington can only sit back and watch as Iraq's exercise in democracy determines the fate of U.S. troops in the country...
Whether al-Sadr's bloc of 28 lawmakers, coupled with Tawafuk's 44, vote for the agreement or not, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has the numbers to push it through. But his governing Shi'ite coalition and its Kurdish partners have made it clear that they don't want to do that without the approval of all of the country's main groups - Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. "We are not prepared to approve this, the Shi'ites and Kurds alone," said lawmaker Redha Taki, a member of the Shi'ite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. "By democratic means...