Print
Email
Share
Cite
Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s interim president, was selected by the two main Kurdish parties to contest for the post again, even as some voices call for the mainly ceremonial post to go to a Sunni. Iraq’s president will be chosen by the parliament elected by voters in the historic December 15 vote. Results from that poll, which were contested by Sunni and secular groups who felt Shiites took too many seats (al-Jazeera), could be revealed this week. UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw promised the international community would support an Iraq government of national unity (BBC) even while announcing Britain would begin withdrawing its roughly 8000 troops from Iraq in a “matter of months” (al-Jazeera). U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad writes in the Wall Street Journal that Iraq’s current priorities are building a government of national unity, amending the constitution to address Sunni grievances, eliminating militias, increasing security, and expanding the economy. Violence in Iraq continues: at least fourteen people were killed in a double suicide bombing at the Interior Ministry in Baghdad today, the latest in a series of fatal attacks that left over 100 people and nearly twenty U.S. soldiers dead in the last week (NYT). Meanwhile, some schools in Iraq are attempting to instill a sense of national identity in students even as sectarian groups try to split the country into factions (CS Monitor).
