Iraqi National Alliance postpones meeting

The president of the Iraqi National Alliance, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, has postponed a meeting scheduled to be held Thursday evening to respond to the letter of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. No reasons were given as to the postponment, or when the session would instead be held. Parliamentarians have attributed the delay to "complicated" and "overlapping" reasons. An Iraqi MP from the al-Ahrar (Liberal) bloc Jawad Hasnawi, said in a statement to Arabstoday that the main reason was a sharp disagreement between the Liberal bloc and State of Law coalition. Hasnawi added that the liberal bloc informed the State of Law coalition, led by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Islamic Dawa party, that the Sadrist movement would issue a statement with solutions to critical and fundamental problems to be approved by the coalition, otherwise Maliki would be dismissed. "These solutions may lead to radical change in the political map of Iraq," he said. Members of the Liberal bloc, who asked not to be named, predicted that new alliances will appear on the political scene, represented by the Liberal bloc, the Kurdistan alliance and the Iraqi List. The Iraqi National Alliance (INA) includes the State of Law coalition, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq headed by Ammar al-Hakim and the Sadrist movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr. The meeting was between the parties of the INA to respond to a reform draft presented by Moqtada al-Sadr. It is noteworthy that the National Alliance met last Monday to respond to Erbil paper and to discuss the deadline set by al-Sadr. The letter, produced after a summit at the Kurdistan capital Erbil last April, was signed by Kurdish president Masoud Barzani, the speaker of the council of representatives Osama Najafi, former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi and cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The group said they would withdraw confidence from the current government in case it did not commit to the terms of the letter. The letter. dated April 28, states that in case of  refusal of its stipulations, "practical steps" would be taken within 15 days to conduct a vote in order to withdraw confidence from the government. It also calls on the government to stop interfering in the work of security forces and parliament, and included a paragraph criticising the "tyranny in decision-making”.