Iraq govt delayed, attack on PM Allawi

‘‘I think the government will not be announced today…. We want to see the Sunni Arabs represented as well…. Negotiations also continue over the allocation of some posts,’’ the Kurdish leader told Turkey’s CNN Turk television in an interview.

Disputes surfaced at a meeting late on Wednesday, with caretaker Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who narrowly escaped assassination shortly after the talks, rejecting an offer to join the cabinet, sources involved in the negotiations said.

‘‘The talks were going well, but the Shi’ites offered Allawi just two ministries, not the four that he wants, and he rejected the offer,’’ one source said, referring to ministries offered to Allawi’s political grouping.

‘‘There was also continued disagreement over what ministries the Sunnis should get. The question really is whether the Shi’ites want to create a government of national unity, or just a Shi’ite-Kurd government,’’ he said.

Shi’ite politicians said they were still hoping to announce a deal later in the day, but could not say when. ‘‘We have made progress. An announcement will be made,’’ said a senior official in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the main Shi’ite party.

Meanwhile on Thursday, a roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying foreign security contractors on the road to Baghdad’s airport, killing two people. Their nationalities were not known. Three foreign contractors were killed on the same stretch of road on Wednesday, and two US soldiers were killed in the same vicinity the day before.

The surge in violence, underlined by the closeness of the assassination attempt on Allawi, one of the most protected men in the country, comes amid a general elevation in tension, especially between the Shi’ite and Sunni communities.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, a group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt in a statement on the Internet. The group has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks over the last month.

Talabani said on Wednesday that the bodies of more than 50 people, believed to be those of Shi’ites said to have been taken hostage in the town of Madaen, near Baghdad, last week, had been found in the Tigris river South of the capital. It is still not clear that the bodies found in the river are those of the people said to have been taken hostage. Police in the area say the bodies have been recovered over the past several weeks, not since the hostage crisis. Talabani said details of the names of those killed would bereleased soon. —Reuters