Dubai: Iraq's political parties have reached a power-sharing agreement in which Nouri Al Maliki will stay on as prime minister, spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh told AFP on Sunday.
"An agreement was reached [yesterday] among the political parties in which Jalal Talabani will continue as head of state, the prime minister will stay on, and the Al Iraqiya party will choose its candidate for parliament speaker," said Al Dabbagh, spokesman for the State of the Law Bloc.
Rejection hinted
The Iraqi National Movement, however, denied that a deal had been reached with Al Maliki's bloc and said any proposal that amounted to less than what the bloc demanded would be rejected.
A spokeswoman for Eyad Allawi, former prime minister and leader of Al Iraqiya, said Al Maliki and his allies must be daydreaming and that statements such as Al Dabbagh's would reduce goodwill ahead of the round table meetings scheduled to be held in Arbil today.
Masoud Barzani, regional president of Kurdistan has called for a round table meeting to discuss ways of forming the new government of the country more than eight months after the election.
The meeting which is expected to take one day will discuss distribution of government posts among the winners of the election.
Al Iraqiya won 91 seats in the 325-member parliament, two seats ahead of Al Maliki's coalition.
"There is a draft agreement with the Iraqiya party, but there are still some problems to resolve," Al Dabbagh told AFP, adding that parliament would meet on Thursday to choose a speaker, the first step towards forming a new government.
The spokesman added that both Al Maliki and Allawi will today attend a ceremony in Arbil, capital of the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan, to formally announce the agreement.
Al Dabbagh said the meeting is scheduled at convene at 11am (0800 GMT).
Iraqiya MP Jamal Al Butikh earlier said his bloc had agreed to the power-sharing deal after it was assured that "no political decision would be made without its agreement."
