Al-Hashemi holds talks with Qatari emir

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraq‘s Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi held on Tuesday talks with Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khaliefa on obstacles facing the formation of the new government, according to a statement of his office. “The vice president met with the emir as well as Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem in Doha, and discussed with them the ongoing efforts to end the political deadlock in the country and form the new government,” said the statement received by IraqiNews.com news agency. Al-Hashemi highlighted the importance of Arab support to speed up the formation of the government. Differences among political blocs reached their zenith between the main two blocs, al-Iraqiya of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the State of Law of incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, with the first obtaining 91 out of the new parliament’s 325 seats while the second obtained 89. The State of Law formed a coalition with the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) to garner the largest number of seats in the new parliament. This claim was rejected by al-Iraqiya bloc, which argued that it had been the winner of the largest number of seats in the parliament and that it has the right to form the new government. Iraq’s March 7 nationwide elections had ended with four main Iraqi political blocs obtaining most seats, as Iraqiya won 91 seats, followed by Maliki’s State of Law with 89 seats, Ammar Al-Hakim’s INA with 70 seats and the Kurdistan Alliance of Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barazani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as well as a number of Kurdish Islamic parties with 57 seats. SH (S) 1