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Ankara hosts Iraqi vice president days after Sadrists’ informal referendum
Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a member of the Shiite-led Iraqi National Alliance (INA), had talks with President Abdullah Gül, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.
Abdul-Mahdi’s visit to the capital came only days after Iraq’s Sadrists concluded an unofficial two-day vote on Saturday over who should be the country’s leader, after the bloc’s strong showing in last month’s election gave it kingmaker status.
The “referendum,” which has no legal authority, comes as sitting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi struggle to form a government, with neither holding enough seats to claim a parliamentary majority.
Both Maliki and Allawi were on the unofficial ballot, which also included the former’s predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Abdul-Mahdi and Jaafar al-Sadr, the son of an ayatollah who founded Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party and was murdered by Saddam’s regime in 1980, are also candidates, while ballot sheets also included space for voters to write in the name of their chosen nominee.
Speaking to reporters following a meeting with Abdul-Mahdi at the Foreign Ministry residence, Davutoğlu said they discussed the election process, while voicing pleasure over the stable and transparent election in the neighboring country.
Davutoğlu reiterated Ankara’s well-known stance and expectation that Iraq will form a representative government which embraces all segments of society in Iraq.
In response to a question, Abdul-Mahdi said the government would be formed by the Iraqi people and that a certain amount of progress has been made. Without elaborating, he added that they are open to support from neighboring countries.
Maliki’s State of Law Alliance finished a narrow second behind Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, with 89 seats to the latter’s 91, but both fell well short of the 163 seats required for a parliamentary majority.
At least two of the four main blocs -- Iraqiya, State of Law, the INA, of which the Sadrists are the largest faction, and Kurdistania, comprising the autonomous Kurdish region’s two long-dominant blocs -- are required to reach that 163 threshold.
Last week, Turkey hosted senior Iraqi Kurdish leader Nechirvan Barzani, the former prime minister of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq. Barzani, who had talks with both Erdoğan and Davutoğlu, indicated last week that the Kurds will firmly demand real concessions on contentious issues during the bargaining period before the formation of a coalition.
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