Kurds, Shi'ite agree on leadership positions

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The son of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said yesterday the Kurds and Ibrahim al-Jaafari have agreed on who will be president and prime minister in a new government, but have yet to decide on the status of Kirkuk, a contested northern Iraqi city with significant oil wealth.

Under the deal, the Kurdish chief would assume the presidency while Mr. al-Jaafari, a Shi'ite, would lead the government as prime minister.

Qubad Talabani, Washington spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said "intense negotiations" also were under way on the details of Kurdistan's federal status and distribution of the nation's oil riches.

Another source familiar with the negotiations said the Kurds had demanded 25 percent of all oil revenues, and were constantly raising the stakes in the ongoing political discussion.

"Nobody can give them what they want right now, nobody can. Only an elected government, a constitutional government can," said a source inside Mr. al-Jaafari's Shi'ite electoral slate, suggesting that the various demands can be resolved only after the new Cabinet is formed.

"This is everybody playing games right now," he said.

Both Kurdish and Shi'ite sources said Kurdish leaders also were holding closed-door meetings with current Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to see whether forming an alliance with the secular Shi'ite might win them more concessions.

The Kurds hold a deal-breaking 77 seats in the 275-member national assembly. The Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance holds 140 seats and Mr. Allawi's party has 44. The rest of the seats are held by a variety of small Sunni, Islamist and secular parties.

The makeup allows for a range of political alliances to form the necessary two-thirds bloc needed to approve the new president and two vice presidents, who in turn will form Iraq's new Cabinet.

"If the Shi'ites don't do anything, we will possibly arrange something with Allawi and the [smaller] Sunni parties," one Kurdish party member said on the condition of anonymity.