Iraq solicits action in deadlock

Wants U.S. to encourage formation of new government

— Iraq’s foreign minister urged the United States on Monday to take a more active role in breaking the deadlock over formation of a new government, saying the nearly seven-month election stalemate has not only left the country in limbo but hurt its economy.

Hoshyar Zebari said in an interview with The Associated Press that since the pullout of U.S. combat forces at the end of August, Iraqi security forces have proved that they are taking responsibility and there hasn’t been a security vacuum - but he said the failure to form a government is creating serious problems.

“Lack of efforts of government formation has been very negative on all aspects of life,” he said. “Everybody is holding back to see whether there would be a government, whether this political, security stability can last and continue.”

A Sunni-backed coalition led by ex-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi narrowly defeated Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated bloc in March elections, but political bosses have been deadlocked over forming a new government. The Iraqi public has grown increasingly frustrated, and Iraqi and U.S. officials fear that insurgents are trying to exploit the political vacuum in an attempt to reignite sectarian tensions.

Zebari said the Obama administration hasn’t taken “an active or pro-active engaging role” because it believes the formation of the governments hould be done by the Iraqis themselves.

“I personally think strongly that they have a role - to encourage, to urge, to facilitate the Iraqi leaders to meet, to take the process further,” he said.

Zebari said there has been “an important positive result” of the delay in forming a government.

It shows “that the Iraqi leaders, that the new Iraq, will not budge to foreign pressures, not to Iran, not to the United States, not to Arab countries, not to Turkey,” he said. “They want to decide their own future, to choose their own government, their own leaders by themselves. But their way - it has taken us too long.”

That’s why the United States should become more actively engaged to help break the deadlock, Zebari said.

The Iraqi minister blamed the impasse on a fight over personalities - essentially who will be prime minister - not “the substance of government.”

Zebari, who is returning to Baghdad on Friday after more than a week of meetings around the United Nations General Assembly, voiced confidence in his country’s progress in spite of the election stalemate and all that the country has suffered during the past three decades of war, sanctions, invasion and internal divisions.

Also on Monday, Kurdish rebels fighting Iran’s government from bases across the border in Iraq denied that Iranian forces carried out a crossborder raid.

Iran’s state television reported Sunday that Revolutionary Guard forces crossed into Iraq and killed 30 fighters from a group involved in a deadly bomb attack last week at a military parade in northwestern Iran. Iranian officials blamed the bombing on Kurdish rebels, though most Kurdish groups condemned the attack and there has been no claim of responsibility.

Sherzad Kamanger, a spokesman for Iranian Kurdish rebels based in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains, said Monday that there have been no recent battles with Iranian forces, though there was some Iranian artillery shelling late Sunday on four border villages that injured one civilian.

“We have not engaged in any clashes with the Iranian force since nearly 20 days ago,” Kamanger told AP in a phone interview.

Jabbar Yawir, a spokesman for Iraq’s Kurdish forces, also said no Iranian troops crossed the border.

The top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said he could not confirm whether a cross-border raid had taken place.

“We are working to find out if there’s any truth to it, but I know of nothing that would say this is a true report,” Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in a conference call with reporters in Washington.

Meanwhile, Iraqi authorities are groping for explanations to the sudden rise in silencer linked slayings.

At least 12 slayings in Baghdad in the past two weeks have been linked to gangland-style hits using muffled weapons, including an off-duty policeman killed in a drive-by shooting Monday, officials said.

It’s part of a recent wave of targeted attacks on security officials and government workers that has included established insurgent tactics such as roadside bombings and explosives attached to vehicles.

Pinpoint killings also are nothing new to Iraq. Dozens of people - sometimes more - were gunned down each night at the height of the sectarian bloodbath between majority Shiites and Sunnis in 2006 and 2007. Silencers on weapons have featured sporadically in attacks and robberies over the years.

A senior Iraqi intelligence officer said it shows the “the insurgents cannot operate like before” and know that security forces could move in quickly at the sound of shots fired. The officer spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Iraqi intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated “hundreds of silencers” have been made in the past few months in an apparent shift in insurgent tactics. He said the high number is because the homemade units - which cost about $100 and created in insurgent-linked machine shops - often fail after a few rounds and must be replaced.

Information for this article was contributed by Yahya Barzanji, Sagar Meghani, Brian Murphy and Qassim Abdul-Zahra of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 09/28/2010

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