Word: maliki
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to abide by the Iraqi constitution and "normalize" Kirkuk by removing the tens of thousands of Arab Iraqis settled there by Saddam as part of an ethnic-cleansing campaign in the 1980s. After such normalization, according to the constitution, Kirkuk - and other areas with large Kurdish populations in four Iraqi governorates - should then hold a referendum to determine whether they should continue to be administered by Baghdad or be ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government. It may have been constitutionally mandated, but the idea of forcibly resettling Kirkuk's Arab population was unthinkable...
...Iraq's improving security situation has eliminated many of the excuses for postponing the normalization process in Kirkuk envisaged by the constitution, and Kurdish politicians have begun to suspect that al-Maliki intends to use the central government's growing strength to push back against gains won by the Kurds in the aftermath of the invasion, when the government in Baghdad was weak. The central government has already blocked oil pumped under the auspices of the Kurdish regional government from being exported in Iraqi pipelines, even though revenue from the sales would have been shared with the central government...
...Ammar al-Hakim, the son of the recently departed and revered cleric Abdulaziz al-Hakim - and the militant Moqtada al-Sadr's party, which has its pulse on the much of the country's poor and frustrated Shi'a underclass. (Read how the shoe-thrower put Maliki in a sensitive spot...
...Maliki had held protracted negotiations to re-join the INA but wanted his Dawa Party to receive a majority of the block's parliament seats and to be guaranteed a return to the premiership. No deal. So Maliki decided to gamble on his own prowess, forming a new coalition he touts as nationalist (condemning alleged Syrian support for terrorism in Iraq and promoting a strong central government) as well as anti-sectarian (digs at the INA, which is led by clerics with strong ties to neighboring Iran...
...squatters den three months ago, after being kicked out of their homes during the ethnic cleansing of a Baghdad neighborhood in 2006. She stops suit-and-tie men wearing expensive jewelry, asking for high-level politicians by name, to see people who an hour earlier shared the stage with Maliki. "I know I'm an old woman, but I can't find anyone to help me. I came here because now I don't have a place to live." Dejected, the women exit into the hot and dusty parking lot. "I want our voice to be heard," Salman says...