This blog post was published on March 31 2010. §
Negotiations between the two Shiite coalitions failed
Al-Hayat revealed today that Maliki himself went to Tehran in secret visit to negotiate with INA (the Sadrists) and newspaper even revealed that Maliki offered to name another candidate for the PM post.
Despite Al-Hayat report saying that Muqtada Al-Sadr was flexible and dropped his objection on Maliki, but Muqtada Al-Sadr added more demands:
The release of all [Sadrists] prisoners, should be given guarantees of non-unilateral use of power and the parliament should be able to sacked the prime minister at any time he would exceed the program.
Maliki (and his sidekick Dabgh) are playing the rumors game, the above was enough for both to circulate news about reaching an agreement between SoL and INA, while the reality is totally different.
First, Sadrists spokesman Salah al-Obeidi denied the above rumors saying that there are no agreements or alliances reached with the State of Law.
Second, this is reported about an hour ago says that the negotiations between both failed, INA and SoL are waiting for a second round negotiation in Baghdad soon, INA will hold a very important meeting among its members to decide in which direction the Coalition will follow (the Sadrists rejected all other names suggested by SoL even Adil Abd Al-Mahdi).
Third, to make things better or worst, Muqtada Al-Sadr called his supporters to start a referendum to choose the Sadrists candidate for the Prime Minister post, which confirms the news that part of the negotiations differences between both Shiite coalitions is that INA wants its own candidate for the post.
Allawi’s anger
The honeymoon (or better to call it a truce) between Iran and Allawi ended today with Allawi criticizing Iran saying:
Not Iran and not anybody can impose its will on the Iraqi people. Iran started to involve itself in every aspect in Iraq…
He even criticised Talabani, after the president went to Iran instead of going to Arab Summit (Allawi criticism came after a meeting between Talabani and the U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill).
SoL offered the following plan to INA, which is also the answer behind Allawi’s anger is the following:
To form a joined coalition (Maliki suggested Al-Wa’li as the leader) with the participation of the Kurdish Coalition and the Islamic. More spices needed to this combination, the “emerging” coalition wants to talk to Salih Al-Mutlaq Party a secular “decoration” offering the Mutlaq’s Bloc “The National Dialogue” the Foreign Ministry.
The above explains why SoL member Khalid Al-Asadi said that his coalition is negotiating blocs inside Al-Iraqiya, which is also confirmed by Al-Iraqiya leader Al-Nujaifi. Also explains the reaction made by Al-Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoon Al-Damluji denied the disintegration of her coalition