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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Shahristani the US choice for interim Iraqi leader? |
| 2004-05-26 |
| EFL An Iraqi official in Washington told The New York Sun yesterday that Dr. Hussain al-Shahristani is being pushed by the White House and the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority for a position as either president or prime minister of the Iraqi government expected to take power on July 1. Dr. al-Shahristani was one of the nuclear scientists sentenced to prison in Iraq after refusing to help build Iraqâs nuclear bomb in the 1980s. He fits the profile of a technocrat the coalition and U.N.envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has hinted they would like to head the new government that is scheduled to guide the country toward elections scheduled no later than January 2005. This article, however, says heâs declined any such offer. More on Sharistaniâs background here. The move comes as a number of Shiite parties are hinting that they may not recognize the new caretaker government if it side lines the role of existing political parties. Among the parties Mr. Brahimi has apparently sidelined are the Iranian sponsored Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, and the Dawa party, which means Islamic Call. âBy sidelining SCIRI and Dawa and other Shiite political parties we could be pushing them into a corner that will force them to work against the new government,â the Iraqi official told the Sun. Stuff on the Bush/Blair thing and other diplomatic developments snipped. |
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