IRAQ: Iraq's largest Sunni political bloc committed itself yesterday to talks with Shias and Kurds to form a government of national unity but said that its key demands, including changes to the constitution, would have to be met.
The US, which is driving the political process, is anxious for the Kurds and majority Shias, who dominated last month's elections, to form a government which includes minority Sunnis. It hopes that an inclusive coalition will dampen the raging Sunni Arab insurgency.
In the latest violence, four policemen were killed and nine were wounded by a roadside bomb in Baquba, 65km north of Baghdad. Thirteen other people were killed in shootings and explosions across Iraq, including four nephews of a policeman, killed in a rocket attack on his home.
The Iraqi Accordance Front, which comprises three mainly Islamist Sunni Arab groups, said that it would appeal against the results of an election it believes was rigged but would still take part in talks on a new coalition government.
"It will be active in talks with other political blocs to form a unity government," said Tareq al-Hashemi, whose moderate Iraqi Islamic Party is the largest member of the front.
Hashemi said the election results "did not reflect the political and population weight" of the front, which believes it should have won 11 more seats. The Sunni coalition would seek key ministries in the new government as compensation, he said.
The front also intends to hold Shias and Kurds to their promise of renegotiating the constitution, which was approved in a referendum last October but was opposed by Sunni Arabs, who objected to a number of controversial clauses.
They fear that the constitution's provisions for federalism will give Kurds and Shias control over Iraq's vast oil reserves and eventually break up the country.
"We ask the blocs not to put obstacles in the way of making changes to the constitution," Hashemi told a news briefing.
President George W Bush, whose envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had some influence on the constitution-writing process, promised Sunni Arabs a review in a deal to persuade them to vote in the December 15th parliamentary election and abandon their support for the insurgency.
Washington saw the high turnout by Sunnis as encouraging after they boycotted elections for an interim assembly in January 2005.
Khalilzad said recently that Iraqi leaders were discussing "compromises on some substantive issues such as federalisation in Arab regions of Iraq".
However, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most powerful Shia leaders, has appeared to rule out any significant amendments, saying: "The first principle is not to change the essence of the constitution."
This has set the stage for some tough talking in the negotiations on a new government, which US officials and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani have said will probably take weeks.
It is unclear how far the Shia Islamists, who won 128 seats in the 275-seat parliament, will go in making concessions.
As US and Iraqi forces continued their search yesterday for kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll, Iraq's justice ministry said that six women prisoners held by US forces would be released within a week. Carroll's abductors have threatened to kill her if all women prisoners in Iraq are not freed.
A joint Iraqi-US review board approved the release of the women on January 17th, before the kidnappers made their demand, but US officials then apparently delayed freeing them so that it did not look like they were giving in to the hostage-takers.