Baghdad, June 23: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on international and regional powers on Tuesday to stop meddling in Iraqi coalition talks, blaming them for the absence of a new government nearly four months after elections.
“I am not prepared to wait for what the external intervention will say, but unfortunately, the external intervention is influencing the national situation,” Maliki told a news conference.
“National political leaders are no longer able to make any decision because of that,” he said in response to a question about the influence of neighbouring countries.
“The people who were in the forefront of the political process have voluntarily given in to foreign agendas.”
The incumbent prime minister, who is being challenged for the right to form a new government by former premier Iyad Allawi, said Iraq had no desire to fall out with regional governments but warned they were complicating efforts to forge a new political consensus.
“I’m calling for good relations, but there is one thing we are wholly responsible for — it is called my nation,” Maliki said.
“The entry of international and regional intervention into the formation of the government has created many problems.
“I’m talking to my partners in the political process. If we all move together and work within the national framework, we will find many opportunities for solutions.”
Maliki’s Shiite-led State of law list has formed an alliance with the main Shiite religious bloc which leaves it just four seats short of a parliamentary majority, fanning fears of a new Shiite-dominated government that will tilt Iraq more towards Iran.
His main challenger Allawi, a secular Shiite who swept Sunni Arab provinces in the March 7 general election, insists he is indispensible to wooing the former elite community away from insurgency and back into the political mainstream, and has the support of Sunni governments, notably Saudi Arabia.
—Agencies