Parliament fails to choose speaker;booby trapped car in Karkouk

The Iraqi National Assembly ( parliament) held its second session on Tuesday after a two and a half hours delay without choosing a speaker for it.

Interim chairman of the society Sheikh Dari al-Fayyad said that the winning bloc in the legislative elections asked to postpone the selection of the speaker and his two deputies until the Arab Sunni compete inter-talks to choose their candidates to assume this post.

This decision was met by protests of parliamentarians who called for settling this issue.

The leading figure in the United Iraqi Coalition list, Abbas al-Bayati, said that there is a crisis in the parliament relating to the figure that will be chosen to assume the speakership, as there are attempts to convince the Iraqi president whose term of office has expired, Sheikh Ghazi Ojeil al- Yawer, to assume this post.

On the sideline of the session, the chairman of the Higher Council For The Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, held a meeting with al-Yawer to discuss this issue. The Kurds prefer that the post of the speaker of the parliament will be assumed by Sheikh al-Yawer or the minister of industry Hajem al-Hosni whose term of office had expired, while the two men prefer a different post.

The Iraqi list led by the prime minister whose term of office is expired Eyad Allawi refused to nominate its member Adnan al-Jinabi to preside over the parliament. On the other side, the coalition list prefers one of its members, Sheikh Fawaz al-Jarba to assume this post.

For his part, the Iraqi finance minister whose term of office is expired Adel Abdul Mahdi said he is the candidate of the Shiite list for the post of the vice President.