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Iraq’s Talabani sees Sunni bloc joining govt

An Iraqi government supported by the Iraqiya bloc will be set up but it is unclear whether its leader will be part of the new coalition, President Jalal Talabani said on Tuesday.

Iraqiya’s leader, former prime minister Iyad Allawi, skipped a parliamentary session earlier in the week and headed to London for family engagements after telling CNN in an interview that power-sharing between Iraq’s Shia, Kurdish and Sunni factions was “dead.”

Despite Allawi’s comments, which followed his appointment as head of a yet-to-be created national policy council, his party has said it would remain in the government.

“We have nominated him to be chief of the national policy council ... It’s a very important position, but I don’t know about him (joining),” Talabani told Reuters after a meeting with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Paris.

Talabani, a Kurd, said Iraqiya’s leadership had now “assured” him it would participate in the political process after months of rancorous bargaining which had heightened fears of renewed sectarian violence.

“It will happen and the violence will end,” he said after attending the Socialist international council meeting.

Iraq needs a stable government to rebuild infrastructure and exploit its vast oil wealth while violence ebbs seven years after the US-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Under the power-sharing deal reached three days ago, politicians divided the three top posts — prime minister, president and speaker of parliament — among the main ethnic and sectarian political blocs.

When asked if the Kurds had cut a deal to join the government by possibly gaining the oil ministry or sealing an agreement on oil exports from the Kurdish region, Talabani reiterated the country’s oil was a national resource.