U.N. urges Sunni participation in Iraqi politics
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.N.'s top representative in Iraq told the president of the nation's highest Sunni Muslim authority on Thursday that all political factions should be involved in writing an Iraqi constitution.
Ashraf Qazi, special representative of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, met with Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, president of the Association of Muslim Scholars at Baghdad's Um Al Qura mosque, according to a U.N. statement.
The association boycotted Iraq's January 30 elections and later questioned their legitimacy. (Full story)
Voters chose a 275-member transitional National Assembly, which will draft a new constitution and pick the country's next president and two vice presidents.
Qazi "stressed the importance of ensuring that all components of Iraqi society are adequately represented in the constitution-making process," the statement said.
He "underlined the need for all Iraqi political forces in the writing of the constitution, which will be put to vote in a public referendum towards the end of the year."
The meeting comes in advance of this weekend's convening of the assembly.
Arab Sunnis dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein although they are a minority of the population. Shiite Muslims comprise about 60 percent of the Iraqi people and were persecuted under Saddam, who is Sunni.
Iraq's Kurds and the Shiites -- who dominated in the elections -- have been trying to bring the Sunnis into Iraq's political process.
On Tuesday, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi urged politicians, including the assembly president, Sheikh Dhary Al-Fayadh, to help "speed up" the new government's formation.
Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a top candidate for the president in the transitional government, said last week that the transitional assembly will probably choose a new government by this weekend.
Shiite Dawa Party leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is expected to be selected prime minister, said last week that lawmakers want a Sunni Arab to be assembly speaker.
Other developments
Gen. George Casey, head of U.S. forces in Iraq, could recommend within weeks that tens of thousands of troops return home beginning this summer, CNN has learned. Senior U.S. military officials said a final decision on the proposal depends on whether the security situation in Iraq improves. U.S. helicopters captured an insurgent base north of Baghdad, killing 85 rebels, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said Wednesday. "A previous safe haven for planning attacks has been removed," a U.S. military official said of Tuesday's battle. (Full story)Two Iraqi police officers and three Iraqi army officers were accidentally killed Thursday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said. Iraqi police mistook Iraqi soldiers who were dressed as civilians for armed insurgents, sparking a gunfight, police said.An investigation is being conducted in the death this week of a "security detainee," the U.S. military said Thursday. The unidentified detainee died at multinational jail and an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death, the military said.U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested 13 suspected insurgents and found weapons during raids Wednesday and Thursday south of Mosul and near Tal Afar, the U.S. military said. In a separate operation on Wednesday, Task Force Baghdad soldiers found an ammunition cache at a house in the southern part of the capital, the military reported.U.S. Army Secretary Francis Harvey on Wednesday said the Army is having trouble meeting its recruitment goals and it's encouraging parents to steer their children toward the Army. "There is a forecast that we will not meet the monthly goal" for March and April Harvey said at his first Pentagon news conference as the Army's top civilian official. (Full story)Harvey also said Iraq is having no problems recruiting soldiers, and Iraqis appear eager to serve. The United States has trained and equipped more than 145,000 security forces, he said. "The objective is to get somewhere around 300,000" soldiers and police officers, Harvey said.CNN's Kevin Flower and Aneesh Raman contributed to this report.
