Parties that walked out of Iraq's government last year have agreed to rejoin, prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said today, in what could amount to a long-awaited political breakthrough.
The main Sunni Arab bloc, the Accordance Front, said it intended to submit a list of candidates for cabinet positions within days and could be back in Maliki's government soon. Its return has long been a major goal of the United States.
But Mr Maliki also repeated a warning that militia groups must disarm, a sign he is unlikely to reconcile quickly with Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his political movement.
"prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said that reconciliation has proved a success and all political blocs will return to the government," Maliki's office said in a statement after Mr Maliki met visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
The Accordance Front quit Maliki's Shia-led government last year at a time when most violence in Iraq pitted minority Sunni Arabs against majority Shias.
But violence between those two communities has declined dramatically over the past year, and the Front signalled it was drawing closer to Maliki by backing his crackdown on Sadr's Shia Mehdi Army militia, begun last month.
Front spokesman Salim al-Jubouri said the group intended to submit a list of candidates for cabinet posts "in a few days," which the cabinet could then present to parliament.
"Our return to the government is very close," he said.
A return of the Front would effectively unite the leaders of all of Iraq's major political groups apart from the Sadrists, who argue a government crackdown on militias is an attempt to sideline them ahead of provincial elections in October.
Sadr pulled his six ministers from Mr Maliki's government a year ago after Maliki refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. That rift deepened last month when Mr Maliki, also a Shia, ordered a crackdown on the Mehdi Army.
"For us, this government has lost its credibility as a government of national unity. It does not represent all the sects of Iraq and we are not ready to join a government which is a threat to the new Iraq," Sadr bloc member of parliament, Ahmed al-Masoudi said.