Kurdish Legislature charges PM Maliki, former PM Allawi with delaying cabinet formation

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Legislature of north Iraq’s Kurdistan Coalition, Mahmoud Othman, has said on Tuesday that Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and former Prime Minister and Leader of al-Iraqiya Coalition, have been been behind the delay of the settlement of the vacant cabinet posts in the newly-formed Iraqi government. “The settlement of the vacant cabinet posts and the proposed National Council for Strategic Policies (NCSP) have been confined between two or three persons, who are Dr. Iyad Allawi, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and (former Prime Minister) Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who don’t reserve the right to delay such issues,” Othman told IraqiNews.com news agency. “There are many differences towards the said issue, that had been delayed for more than two months, due to the weakness of transparency..Why don’t they speak about the issue and why don’t they send such problems to the Parliament, in order to settle them?,” he asked. The Iraqi Parliament had been waiting for a long time for the assignment of the Vice-Presidents and the vacant service and security ministries, in order to enable the government to serve its duties in the correct form, and in order to enable the Parliament to carry its duty in observing and follow up the activiy of those ministries. The Parliament had granted trust on 21/12/2010 to the new cabinet, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, comprising 42 ministries, including 12 ministries of state, whilst Maliki kept the Interior, Defense and National Security Ministries under his administration on (acting) basis, whilst he assigned a number of other cabinet posts, also on the same basis to a number of persons, pending the final naming of their ministers. ST / SKH 1748